Chinese and Russian Navies to Hold Joint Drills in Mediterranean
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Version 0 of 1. HONG KONG — The Chinese Navy will hold joint exercises with Russia in the Mediterranean in May, China’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, a further indication of the closer ties between the two countries and of the navy’s increasing ambitions. Nine ships from the two countries will participate in the drills, including Chinese vessels now on antipiracy patrols in waters off the Horn of Africa, the Defense Ministry spokesman, Geng Yansheng, said at a monthly news briefing in Beijing. The drills will focus on navigation safety, at-sea replenishment, escort missions and live-fire exercises, he said. “The aim is to deepen both countries’ friendly and practical cooperation and increase our navies’ ability to jointly deal with maritime security threats,” Mr. Geng said. “These exercises are not aimed at any third party and have nothing to do with the regional situation.” One of China’s main military goals is to develop a navy that goes beyond coastal waters and can travel the world’s oceans, and while military analysts said the drills in the Mediterranean appeared to be modest, they would be the farthest from home the Chinese Navy has done. “The Chinese fleet has never made any exercises in the Mediterranean, and moreover, this is with Russia,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. “The two countries want to show they have escalated their strategic partnership.” China’s announcement came as the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was visiting Washington. He and President Obama declared that Japan and the United States would increase their military cooperation, a move that China criticized Wednesday. With Russia’s isolation from the West over the crisis in Ukraine, and with China’s concern about a more intimate American-Japanese alliance, it suits President Xi Jinping of China and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to advertise their friendship, Professor Shi said. “Russia wants to show the United States it is not isolated and can launch exercises near Eastern Europe,” he said. “And as a result of Abe’s visit to the United States and the upgraded Japan-American military relationship, Xi wants to show the United States he has good relations with Russia.” The fact that the Chinese Navy is venturing so far from home for military exercises shows that it has a new confidence in its abilities, said James Hardy, the Asia-Pacific editor of IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly. “The geopolitical significance of its exercising alongside Russia will not be lost on the U.S. and NATO,” he said, “although it would be churlish of anyone in the West to complain about it, given the number of joint drills the U.S. and its allies conduct in China’s near seas.” The Chinese Navy has operated in the Mediterranean before, most notably when China’s warships helped rescue more than 30,000 Chinese workers stranded in Libya after the downfall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011. It also sent a frigate to accompany the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile in 2013 and 2014. “So this isn’t entirely new territory,” Mr. Hardy said. China’s contribution to the exercises will include two frigates and a supply ship used in the evacuation of Chinese citizens and others from Yemen in April, Mr. Geng said. Those ships were dispatched from the antipiracy patrols to carry out the evacuation. The exercises themselves are probably not as important as the message, said Peter Dutton, a professor of strategic studies at the United States Naval War College in Newport, R.I. “It suggests Russia and China are sending a political signal to the U.S. and Europe that the continental powers are standing together to support each other’s expanding interests in the face of maritime opposition,” he said. The Chinese and Russian Navies have exercised together since 2012 in waters off Russia’s eastern seaboard. Mr. Geng did not give a date for the exercises, but it appeared that they would be held after the May 9 military parade in Moscow commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. President Xi has accepted an invitation to attend the ceremony, and a large contingent of Chinese military personnel is scheduled to march in the parade. European leaders, angered by Russia’s actions in Ukraine, have refused invitations, leaving Mr. Xi as the most prominent guest at an event that is likely to be further public confirmation of the cordial Russia-China relations. The joint naval exercises come a year after Russia announced that it would sell the S-400 surface-to-air missile system to China, a sale it had been reluctant to make because of fears of reverse engineering by the Chinese. |