{"id":6655,"date":"2023-06-04T15:53:09","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T15:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/?p=6655"},"modified":"2023-06-04T16:48:28","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T16:48:28","slug":"chinese-warship-nearly-hits-u-s-destroyer-in-taiwan-strait-during-joint-canada-u-s-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/chinese-warship-nearly-hits-u-s-destroyer-in-taiwan-strait-during-joint-canada-u-s-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese warship nearly hits U.S. destroyer in Taiwan Strait during joint Canada-U.S. mission\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mackenzie Gray

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Chinese warship<\/a> came within 150 yards of hitting American destroyer<\/a> USS Chung-Hoon, during a rare joint Canada-U.S. mission sailing through the Taiwan Strait<\/a>, the latest aggressive military move from Beijing<\/a> in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global News has been travelling on HMCS Montreal, the Canadian frigate participating in the mission, since May 25 in the South China Sea<\/a> and witnessed the near collision from the bridge wing of the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A People\u2019s Liberation Navy ship picked up considerable speed and cut in front of the bow of the Chung-Hoon, a maneuver HMCS Montreal\u2019s<\/a> commander, Capt. Paul Mountford,<\/a> called \u201cnot professional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Chinese vessel altered its course, Mountford says the crew called the American ship and told them to move or there would be a collision. The Americans responded by asking the Chinese to stay clear of the ship, but the Chung-Hoon ultimately needed to alter course and slow down to avoid a crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mountford believes the incident was \u201dclearly instigated by the Chinese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact this was announced over the radio prior to doing it, clearly indicated this was intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chung-Hoon and Montreal have been sailing together in the South China Sea for nearly a week prior to entering the Taiwan Strait. Global News has seen Chinese warships shadowing the Canadian vessel on multiple occasions during its transit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese did not attempt a similar maneuver on HMCS Montreal but one of the two warships that were in the area did sail within 1,000 yards of the Canadian ship, a distance that Mountford believed was safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese told both the Canadian and American ships over radio systems that they are entering Chinese territory, despite the joint mission taking place in internationally recognized waters, according to Mountford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am hoping that is an isolated incident that won\u2019t happen again for us, because we have international law on our side,\u201d Mountford told Global News. \u201cThis is international waters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) said in a statement<\/a> released Saturday the Chinese warship \u201cexecuted maneuvers in an unsafe manner in the vicinity of Chung-Hoon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to USINDOPACOM, the ship overtook the U.S. destroyer on its port side crossing its bow at 150 yards, prompting the Chung-Hoon to maintain course but slow its speed to 10 knots \u201cto avoid a collision.\u201d The Chinese ship then crossed the Chung-Hoon\u2019s bow a second time \u201cstarboard to port at 2,000 yards\u201d and remained off the destroyer\u2019s port bow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe LY 132\u2019s closest point of approach was 150 yards and its actions violated the maritime \u2018Rules of the Road\u2019 of safe passage in international waters,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement to Global News, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Canada said the Canadian and U.S. ships had \u201chyped (the sailing) up publicly,\u201d and added that Chinese naval and air forces had been tracking and monitoring both ships \u201clawfully and professionally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRelevant countries have been deliberately stirring up troubles and risks in the Taiwan Strait, maliciously undermining regional peace and stability and sending wrong signals to the \u201cTaiwan independence\u201d forces,\u201d wrote Jianwei Li, deputy director of the embassy\u2019s cultural and press section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jianwei said China would take all necessary measures to \u201cfirmly respond to all threats and provocations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada\u2019s defence minister Anita Anand had just finished participating in a security summit in Singapore when she learned of the incident in the Strait of Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summit was attended by both U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and China\u2019s Defence Minister Li Shangfu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anand said neither Canada nor its allies would be deterred from sailing in international waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCanada will continue to sail where international law allows, including the Strait, the South China Sea,\u201d Anand said in an interview from Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd really, our overall goal is to increase the peace and stability of this region. And that\u2019s why we are going to continue to see more of Canada in this region as set out in our Indo-Pacific strategy. We\u2019ve already seen unsafe intercepts and we have addressed those appropriately with China in terms of our RCAF pilots. Actors in this region must engage responsibly, and that\u2019s the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 with files from David Akin and Sean Previl, Global News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mackenzie Gray A Chinese warship came within 150 yards of hitting American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon, during a rare joint Canada-U.S. mission sailing through the Taiwan Strait, the latest aggressive military move from Beijing in the South China Sea. Global News has been travelling on HMCS Montreal, the Canadian frigate participating in the mission, since May 25 in the South China Sea and witnessed the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,218,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asian-issues","category-reports-and-articles","category-172"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6658,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6655\/revisions\/6658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}