PM seeks support in dispute with China
Jets buzz Canadian ships in Taiwan Strait, adding a new layer to tensions
OSAKA, JAPAN— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has arrived in Osaka, Japan, for the G20 leaders’ summit, with a contact between Chinese fighter jets and Canadian ships in the Taiwan Strait adding a new tension between the two countries.
Trudeau is hoping for progress, or at least fresh support from other countries, in Canada’s disputes with China over agriculture products and China’s arrests of two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Canada’s detention of a Chinese high-tech executive on an extradition warrant from the United States.
The prime minister has no meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping at the summit to do this, but U.S. President Donald Trump committed to raising the detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor during his own meeting with the prime minister in the Oval Office last Thursday.
Trudeau will also lean on likeminded allies that have already spoken out about the detentions, including France, the U.K., Germany and Spain.
On Friday, he will meet with European partners to discuss a range of issues, such as climate change, though the diplomatic issue with China is expected to be raised.
The incident at sea was reported by former journalist Matthew Fisher, now with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute think-tank, who was aboard HMCS Regina on June 18 when two Chinese jets flew within 300 metres of the frigate.
Canada’s Defence Department says the Regina and the navy’s interim resupply ship, MV Asterix, were travelling in international waters from Vietnam to the coast of North Korea to help the UN prevent North Korean smuggling.
It says the decision to transit the strait between mainland China and Taiwan was not intended to send a political message but simply represented the most practical route for the vessels.
“The most practical route between Cam Ranh Bay (in Vietnam) and Northeast Asia involves sailing through the Taiwan Strait,” said Defence Department spokesperson Jessica Lamirande.
“Transit through the Taiwan Strait is not related to making any statement.”
Another Canadian warship, HMCS Calgary, made the same trip last October. Yet China recently condemned France and the U.S. for similar passages through what it described as “Chinese waters,” as it claims ownership over Taiwan and has been asserting its dominance over various coastal regions in the area.
According to Fisher’s report, the “noisy fly-past” was the first such incident between a Canadian vessel and Chinese aircraft, though the Regina’s captain, Cmdr. Jake French, was quoted as playing down any threat.
“This was not a dangerous scenario, but it is one that we certainly paid close attention to,” French said.
“It is normal for air forces to check foreign navies operating in their backyard. Seeing the proximity of Chinese forces is part of the business. This is what militaries do.”
Russian aircraft have previously been buzzed Canadian warships in similar fashion in the Black Sea, where tensions have been high since Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
Lamirande did not respond to questions about the Chinese fighter jets, but Brian Job of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia said the department’s description of what happened during the transit has changed several times.
“First, DND simply reports passage through the Taiwan Strait, then it reports being monitored by Chinese vessels … but without anything untoward,” he said.
“Then today, the report on being buzzed by Chinese (military) planes — again with a reassurance by the military that this is not a concern.”
Adam MacDonald, deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Security and Development at Dalhousie University, predicts such incidents between Canadian and Chinese military forces will become more common.
That’s because Canada has been steadily increasing its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region as its economic and strategic importance has grown even as China has been asserting more control over the neighbourhood.
“For a number of decades, we’ve had an erratic period of engagement militarily with East Asia … and now what we’re seeing over the past five years is a real commitment to establish a pseudo, semi-permanent presence in East Asia,” MacDonald said. “So this is going to become the new normal in operating throughout East Asia.”
And while the government insists it was not trying to send a message to China, MacDonald said the decision to travel through the strait nonetheless sends a “passive” statement that the water is not owned by the Chinese.
“Even in operating in these water spaces,” he said, “we are showing a resolve that we see them as international waters and that is in some ways a passive balancing against China if they ever expand their claims.”