Frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec in front of a monitoring Chinese vessel during a maritime co-operative activity between the Philippines, Australia and Canada near Scarborough Shoal in disputed waters of the South China Sea in September, 2025.TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images
A Canadian warship transited the Taiwan Strait that’s claimed by China as an internal waterway – in defiance of Beijing’s warning – days before a high-stakes visit by the Chinese Foreign Minister to Ottawa.
The frigate HMCS Charlottetown made the trip last week, the Department of National Defence said Thursday.
“On May 22, 2026, HMCS Charlottetown conducted a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait, which was completed on May 23, 2026,” spokesperson Andrée-Anne Poulin said in a statement.
It took the department three days to respond to a question from The Globe and Mail.
Wang Yi, China’s Foreign Minister, is due to arrive in Canada on Thursday for a three-day visit. Ottawa and Beijing are seeking to expand relations amid rising U.S. protectionism. It’s the first trip to Canada by the Foreign Minister in 10 years.
The Canadian warship transit took place just weeks after a warning delivered by Wang Di, China’s ambassador to Canada, in an interview with The Globe last month. The envoy said the new partnership between Canada and China would be harmed if Ottawa sends more military vessels through the Taiwan Strait or if Canadian parliamentarians keep travelling to Taiwan to meet with its government.
The ambassador appeared to be laying out expectations for Canada’s behaviour as the two countries attempt to build on a truce reached in January, 2026, when Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a breakthrough in a painful trade war.
Mr. Carney is seeking bigger overseas export markets and new foreign investment to offset economic damage caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Defence Minister David McGuinty said last week Ottawa considers the waterway between China and Taiwan to be international waters.
The phrase “international waters” refers to an idea, discussed in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, that straits used for international navigation are subject to transit passage rights – meaning warships can pass through freely without seeking prior permission from the coastal state.
China, by comparison, considers the Taiwan Strait to be an internal waterway.
The People’s Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan, which lies 160 kilometres off its coastline, as a breakaway province. Taiwan, where many from the losing side of China’s civil war fled in 1949, calls itself the Republic of China.
From 2018 until the resignation of former prime minister Justin Trudeau last year, Canadian warships transited the Taiwan Strait 11 times – over the objections of Beijing.
Under Mr. Carney’s government, this has happened only once before. A Canadian frigate made a single trip in September, 2025, along with an Australian destroyer.