New Zealand navy vessel passes through contested Taiwan Strait

Thursday, 26 September 2024

The navy’s tanker HMNZS Aotearoa has sailed through the Taiwan Strait, a flashpoint for potential conflict with China, in a rare military exercise.

Defence Minister Judith Collins confirmed Aotearoa sailed through the 180km wide strait on Wednesday, alongside the Australian destroyer HMAS Sydney, exercising the right to freedom of navigation.

The Taiwan Strait separates China from the island nation of Taiwan, which Beijing claims sovereignty over and has threatened to annex by military force. Military vessels passing through the contested strait are at times confronted and harassed by China’s military.

“This was a routine movement from one point in the Indo-Pacific to another and not directed at, or requested by, any particular country,” Collins said, in a statement.

Reporting in Japan and Korea indicates a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer, Sazanami, joined the New Zealand and Australian vessels for the first such sailing for Japan, and the three would continue on to an exercise in the South China Sea.

However this was not confirmed by Collins, whose office declined an interview request.

“This was a routine activity, consistent with international law, including the right of freedom of navigation as guaranteed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” Collins said, in a statement.

“The New Zealand Defence Force conducts all activities in accordance with international law and best practice.”

The most recent passage of a New Zealand navy vessel through the strait was in 2017, Collins said, en route to the Chinese port city of Qingdao.

Collins did not answer a question of whether the passage through the strait was responded to by China’s military.

In 2018, the navy’s frigate HMNZS Te Mana was confronted by two Chinese navy frigates, four helicopters, and four other vessels, when transiting through the Spratly Island, a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea over which China also claims sovereignty.

“New Zealand has consistently adhered to our one China policy for more than 50 years. Nothing has changed,” Collins said, in reference to New Zealand’s diplomatic recognition of China and not Taiwan.

“However, New Zealand is concerned about rising cross-strait tensions. We have called for the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues through dialogue.”

The passage through the Taiwan Strait is likely to be met with frustration from Beijing but celebrated by Taiwan, whose representatives to New Zealand have in recent years asked that such exercises occur to support Taiwan’s assertion of independence from Beijing.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark and former National Party leader Don Brash, who have been campaigning against New Zealand’s interest in the Aukus defence pact and proximity to the US, criticised the sailing in a joint statement.

“It’s hard to think of anything more likely to cause the Chinese Government to question New Zealand’s goodwill and independent credentials than deployment of a [New Zealand navy] vessel through the Taiwan Strait in the company of two treaty allies of the United States,” the pair said.

“We see no benefit to New Zealand from joining in the current-sabre rattling in the Taiwan Strait … The current New Zealand Government appears to be going out of its way to antagonise New Zealand’s largest trading partner. This is madness.”

David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University, said the exercise was another example of the Government’s willingness to be more “forward-leaning” on regional security issues.

“We’ve seen this with some of the agreements with the Philippines, a bit more vocal expression about actions in the South China Sea, a willingness to set up involvement in DPRK [North Korea] sanctions enforcements, and now this is another extension of that.”

He said the strait was a sensitive area for China, and there were contested claims about it being international waters.

“For New Zealand this is a way of demonstrating the rules around UNCLOS [the law of the sea] are really important us as a state with significant interest in respect for international law.”

That Japan was involved was significant as there had been a quiet “uptick” in New Zealand’s defence co-operation with Japan, he said.

Capie said he would be very surprised if New Zealand, Australia, and Japan had conducted military exercises in the South China Sea before. New Zealand had sailed through this contested sea before, and participated in Five Powers Defence Arrangement exercises there.

“It’s another example of that intent to do more, and be seen to be pulling our weight in terms of the broader Indo-Pacific security landscape,” he said.

HMNZS Aotearoa left New Zealand in June for a five-month mission the included participating in the United States’ RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii and contributing to efforts to monitor UN sanctions placed on North Korea.