Germany sails two warships through

To challenge China's claims, the United States and allies including Australia, Canada, Britain and France, have regularly conducted “freedom of navigation” operations there, sailing through the strait to emphasize that it is international waters. In its last naval deployment to the region in 2021-22, Germany had sought to avoid confrontation with China and attempted a diplomatic balancing act, seeking a port call in China, which Beijing denied, and by not sailing through the Taiwan Strait. The government was widely criticized for this approach, and on this deployment to the Indo-Pacific, leaders decided to sail through the strait en route from South Korea to the Philippines in a widely-telegraphed move. “The signal is a very simple one, which we have always maintained and I have always maintained,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters in Berlin. “International waters are international waters.”