After months of secretive planning, and preparing the crew to defend their ship if necessary, the Royal Canadian Navy has transited the Taiwan Strait.

As HMCS Ottawa entered the busy and strategically critical body of water at sunrise, it was flanked by three Chinese warships armed with missiles and torpedoes. They mirrored Ottawa’s moves for the entire 17-hour crossing.

Canada made the journey along with the USS Ralph Johnson, a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer, in what both countries describe as a freedom of navigation exercise.

  • wrath-sedan@kbin.social
    1041·
    9 months ago

    I think this headline sounds sensationalist. It’s not untrue, but transiting the Taiwan Strait is something the US, Canada, and several other countries do pretty regularly to ensure they are still treated as international waters.

    This headline makes it sound like an escalation when actually it’s pretty normal operating procedure.

    • Wakmrow@lemmy.world
      562·
      9 months ago

      I’m genuinely curious what you think the US and Canada are doing by sailing warships through another country’s claimed waters?

      • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
        22·
        9 months ago

        Its a game of bluff. China can make all the claims it wants, but the waterway is traditionally open navigable waters, and rules are basically “do you want to start a war to stake your claim?” You can find many recordings online of western ships passing through the strait, and a constant back and forth of;

        “Turn back, you are in chinese waters.”

        “This is the USS Fillintheblank, we are in International Waters performing a freedom of navigation exercise.”

        “We order you to turn back now.”

        “This is the USS Fillintheblank, we are in…”

        • Wakmrow@lemmy.world
          29·
          9 months ago

          Yes so deliberately being antagonistic to prove the point claiming it’s international waters?

          • severien@lemmy.world
            102·
            9 months ago

            Of course it’s necessary to be antagonistic towards breaking international agreements.

  • TheBlue22@lemmy.world
    272·
    9 months ago

    China can claim anything they want. They will never enforce it because they can’t. They might be an economic superpower (selling off your population as slaves to do labour for basically no money in awful conditions tends to do that), but they will never be a military one. Their weapons are copied, low quality garbage, their soldiers untrained, and undisciplined.

    Ruzzia may have been the biggest paper tiger in history, China is the second biggest.

    • Isthisreddit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      9 months ago

      I would say China might actually be a better military power than Russia. No one would have believed just how fucking bad Russia’s military crumbled away. I doubt China has the same issues (but I don’t really know). Let’s say their weapons are copied (copies of what? State of the art weapons systems?) - I’d guess that means they can do some serious damage eitherway, and probably better than what Russia has. They have nukes too.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      8·
      9 months ago

      We can’t know if that’s true until the shooting starts. Nobody knew for sure how strong Russia was until they went to war in Ukraine. In fact, the people who were in the best position to know (the Russians themselves) clearly didn’t know because they never would have started this fight if they knew it would expose them as so weak.

      We do know a bit about how powerful the US would be because they get involved in so many conflicts. But, even then, they haven’t really faced a near-peer opponent since… who knows when.

      In any sustained conflict, the ability to keep feeding troops, food, and supplies to the front line would matter, and that’s where China might have an advantage. They have so many people they could keep feeding into the meat grinder. They have a huge manufacturing-based economy that could supply more and more arms and armour. One weakness is that they’re a net importer of food, which would be a problem if those imports were disrupted.

      One thing’s certain, every country in the world is closely watching what’s happening in Ukraine and trying to learn things without having to put their own soldiers in the firing line. I’m actually sure that that’s one of the conditions for the military aid from the west. Sure, you can use these very modern weapons systems, but you have to turn on telemetry and share everything with us.

      One lesson I’m sure they’re learning so far is that drone warfare is going to be key. They’re key for intelligence gathering, targeted strikes, artillery spotting, etc. A cheap drone can take out much more expensive weapons systems, and they allow a “pilot” to be very close to the action while not being in any danger. Because of China’s drone industry, they’d have an edge in that area.

    • onparole@lemmy.world
      2·
      9 months ago

      The doubts about their non transparency regarding economics has finally hit the fan. Xi is due for a rude awakening. Also fuck Evergrande

    • Faresh@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      Taiwan is not internationally recognized as an independent state.