China’s live-fire exercises off the coast of Taiwan have been an “unnecessary escalation,” according to Canada’s defense minister.
Anita Anand made the comments on CBC radio’s The House this weekend, and the comments came a day after Beijing announced it would end all contacts with the United States on major issues, including climate cooperation.
“We are concerned about China’s threatening actions,” Anand said in an interview.
“There is no justification for using a visit as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait.”
Beijing’s response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has gone beyond simple retaliation, he added.
“It is routine for our countries’ lawmakers to travel internationally, and China’s escalating response simply risks escalating tensions and destabilizing the region,” Anand said.
“We call on China not to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the region and to resolve cross-strait differences through peaceful means.”
That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon.
Defense Minister Anita Anand calls on China to peacefully resolve its Taiwan issues. (Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press)
Over the past few days, China has sent more than 100 warplanes and 10 warships in a show of force over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory.
The country’s strategic rocket forces also launched ballistic missiles over the island and into the Pacific Ocean in further outrage.
Beijing officials said Friday they also plan to personally sanction Pelosi.
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Jonathan Berkshire Miller, an Asia-Pacific expert at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, said he believes China’s reaction has been overblown, but the message is intended for both domestic audiences and the international community.
The country’s Communist Party will hold a major congress this fall, and President Xi Jinping cannot afford to appear weak in Taiwan, a consideration he says should have been on the minds of senior US officials earlier .
“I think America … was reading the tea leaves earlier,” Miller said. “You can see the Biden administration … first in private and then in public, warning against this visit.”
Still, Miller said, this is not the first time a US House speaker has visited the island and that Beijing may have been looking for a pretext to change the status quo in the region.
Beyond Taiwan, five of the missiles fired by China landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Hateruma, an island far south of Japan’s main islands.
Miller said this was a message to all US allies in the region.
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China’s foreign ministry this week summoned Canada’s top diplomat in Beijing, chargé d’affaires Jim Nickel, to stand down after G7 foreign ministers issued a condemnation of the actions of the china
On Friday, China’s vice foreign minister urged Canada to “immediately correct its mistakes.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly did not say whether Ottawa had summoned China’s ambassador to provide a response on Beijing’s behalf.
Anand said the government is fully engaged in the simmering crisis.
“We have our eyes wide open for China,” Anand said. “We will continue to work for the safety and security of this region.”
Canada has two frigates, HMCS Winnipeg and HMCS Vancouver, operating with allies in the Pacific. Both warships are heading to Asia on a pre-planned deployment after taking part in a large-scale US-led military exercise near Hawaii.
China’s insistence that Taiwan is its territory and its threat to use force to reclaim the island have been a repeated refrain from the ruling Communist Party. But the declarations have become stricter in recent years.
Taiwan broke away from the mainland at the end of the country’s civil war in 1949.
Residents in Taiwan overwhelmingly favor the status quo of de facto independence and reject China’s demands for reunification.