Allies, Partners conduct joint naval exercises in South China Sea for Free and Open Indo-Pacific

Reuters

The armed forces of five Allies and Partners conducted joint maritime exercises in a portion of the South China Sea in late September. New Zealand joined for the first time. Australia, Japan, the Philippines and the United States also participated in the exercises in Manila’s exclusive economic zone that sought to improve the militaries’ interoperability, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said.

The exercises included Australia’s HMAS Sydney, Japan’s JS Sazanami, New Zealand’s HMNZS Aotearoa, a Philippine Navy ship and the U.S.’s USS Howard.

Australia’s Department of Defence said the drills demonstrated “our collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.”

The U.S. said the maritime exercises conducted with its Allies and Partners demonstrated “a collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The exercises follow a series of air and sea encounters between the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which have sparred over disputed areas of the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal, one of the Indo-Pacific’s most contested features. The triangular chain of reefs and rocks is 240 kilometers west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon and nearly 900 kilometers from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan. The shoal has been occupied by the Chinese coast guard for more than a decade.

In the days before the exercise, naval vessels from New Zealand and Australia sailed through the Taiwan Strait, part of the South China Sea.

The PRC, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has threatened to annex it by force, also claims it alone exercises sovereignty and jurisdiction over the strait. Taiwan and the U.S. say the strait, a major trade route through which about half of global container ships pass, is an international waterway.

Australia has “consistently pressed China on peace and stability in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

“We have welcomed the resumption of leader and military level dialogue between the U.S. and China,” Wong said, according to a transcript.

Chinese air and naval forces conducted maneuvers in a disputed area of the sea hours after the country’s top diplomat discussed ways of reducing regional tension with his U.S. counterpart.

The PRC claims nearly all of the South China Sea, despite overlapping maritime claims by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. An international tribunal ruled in 2016 that the PRC had no legal claim to the territory.