After participating in week-long joint military drills in the Northwestern Pacific, three Canadian ships arrived in Japan on Aug. 28 to replenish before continuing their activities in the region.
The Canadian vessels taking part in the deployment are His Majesty’s Canadian Ships (HMCS) Ottawa and Vancouver and supply ship MV Asterix, which is in part manned by civilians.
The ships arrived at Japan’s Yokosuka port in Tokyo on Aug. 28 after wrapping up a joint exercise with U.S. and Japanese navies off the Kuril Islands northeast of Japan.
Those include planned exercises in the Taiwan Strait, with previous drills in June leading to a close call after a Chinese navy ship cut off a U.S. destroyer. Taiwan is a self-governed island that Beijing seeks to bring under its communist rule.
The Department of National Defence (DND) has not publicly released details about the exercises and did not return an inquiry by publication time.
Canada is seeking to increase its military presence in the area as part of its Indo-Pacific Strategy released last year. The strategy calls for cooperating with China in some areas but challenging it in others.
The current deployment is not publicly presented as a way to counter China. Robert Watt, the Canadian defence attache to Japan, told reporters that “nothing in the current deployment is designed specifically against one nation or to deter any specific nation.”
Mr. Watt said the naval operation was aimed at deepening cooperation with allies and empowering Canada to play a more active role in regional security, as the number of warships deployed annually is set to rise from two to three.
