HMCS Montreal transited the of Taiwan Strait without incident June 3 in convoy with a U.S. destroyer but drew a sharp rebuke from China for “deliberately provoking risk” even though the passage was in international waters. U.S. warships transit the strait roughly once a month, not usually with allies’ ships. The RCN vessel departed from its Halifax homeport March 26 as part of Canada’s commitment to Indo-Pacific security.

The ink wasn’t dry on the latest U.S. budget legislation approved June 1 by Congress after a long and fractious debate when Republican Senators began looking for ways to increase the bill’s $886-billion military envelope. Their tactics include an emergency spending bill which could include tacking other defence priorities onto a Ukraine aid package which Congress is expected to consider this year.

China’s envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, said today that Ukraine’s allies should stop weapons shipments and focus on negotiating peace with Russia. He acknowledged that there would be “many difficulties” in setting up talks but insisted that “the two sides have not fully shut the door.”

British Defence Secretary, considered a potential successor to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, a Norwegian politician who has held the post since 2014, says members’ military budgets must grow if Russian expansionism is to be countered. “The world is getting more dangerous, more insecure and more anxious, and the next secretary general has to be able to deliver that,” he says. “Until Ukraine happened, there were too many people who didn’t want to see the threat from Putin, and look where we are now.”