Live-fire ‘drills’ begin in Pacific

SOLDIERS from the US, Indonesia and Australia joined a live-fire drill yesterday, part of annual joint combat exercises on Sumatra island amid growing Chinese maritime activity in the Indo-Pacific region.

More than 5,000 personnel from the US, Indonesia, Australia, Japan and Singapore are participating in this year’s exercises, making them the largest since they began in 2009.

The expanded drills are seen by China as a threat. Chinese state media have accused the US of building an Indo-Pacific alliance similar to Nato to limit China’s growing military and diplomatic influence in the region.The UK, Canada, France, India, Malaysia, South Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and East Timor also sent observers to the exercises.

The US Indo-Pacific commander, Admiral John C Aquilino, said the 14 nations involved in the training were signalling their stronger ties as China grew increasingly assertive in claiming virtually the entire South China Sea and held exercises threatening self-ruled Taiwan. “The destabilising actions by the People’s Republic of China as it applied to the threatening activities and actions against Taiwan is exactly what we are trying to avoid,” he said.