Joint naval drills with Russia begin
The Chinese and Russian navies kicked off the second stage of the Joint Sea 2017 drills on Monday, which also marked the 86th anniversary of Japan’s invasion of Northeast China.
The weeklong exercise will be held in the Sea of Japan and, for the first time, in the Sea of Okhotsk, north of Japan’s Hokkaido Island, according to Vladimir Matveev, spokesman for Russia’s Pacific Fleet, who was quoted by Russian Times.
It is also the first time the two navies have conducted joint submarine rescues and antisubmarine exercises involving multiple types of aircraft, vessels and military personnel.
The Chinese fleet utilized the missile destroyer CNS Shijiazhuang, missile frigate CNS Daqing, support ship CNS Dongpinghu, and submarine support ship CNS Changdao with the deep-submersible rescue vehicle Elar-7, according to the Defense Ministry.
The Russian fleet brought out the anti-submarine ship Admiral Tributs, corvette Sovershenny, the rescue vessel Igor Belousov equipped with deep-submersible rescue vehicle AS-40, two diesel submarines and a number of support ships, Matveev said.
The annual drills began in 2012 to strengthen cooperation and maintain regional peace and security.
Li Xing, a professor of international relations specializing in Sino-Russian relations at Beijing Normal University, said both have long coastlines vulnerable to submarine attacks or espionage, hence it is crucial for them to strengthen anti-submarine capabilities and train in different conditions.
“As the two countries deepen mutual trust and cooperation, it is normal to host more elaborate drills in each other’s surrounding international wa-
It is normal to host more elaborate drills in each other’s surrounding international waters.” Li Xing, professor at Beijing Normal University
ters,” he said, adding that the first stage of the joint exercise was in the Baltic Sea in July.
Defense ministries from China and Russia have also said many times that such drills do not target any third party, yet some media have speculated that the timing of this year’s drill, which coincides with the Sept 18 Incident, was somehow related to Japan.
On that day in 1931, Japanese troops, in a staged event, detonated a blast on a section of the railway in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province. They falsely accused the Chinese and used this as a pretext to begin the Japanese military occupation of Northeast China.
The Ministry of Education has ordered all textbooks in elementary and middle schools recognize the incident as the start of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which ended in 1945.
Lyu Yaodong, a researcher of Japanese foreign policy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said too much speculation on the naval drill’s motive is bad for peace and cooperation in the region.
“There will be similar drills in the future,” he said. “Some countries should refrain from hyping up the drills to serve their own agenda of destabilizing the region and demanding more military buildup.”