China hosts meet amid sea tensions
QINGDAO, CHINA—The Chinese Navy on Sunday kicked off a biennial meeting of top foreign naval officials in the port city of Qingdao, in a show of military diplomacy that will be closely watched for signs of more engagement between China and the United States.
The four-day event with delegations from 30 countries comes during heightened tensions in the South China Sea, as US treaty ally Manila is in an increasingly fraught standoff with Beijing over the strategic waterway, which could be a potential flashpoint for US-China relations.
Adm. Stephen Koehler, Pacific Fleet commander, will attend the Western Pacific Naval Symposium on behalf of the United States, according to a source familiar with the matter. Other country delegations include Australia, France, India, South Korea, Russia and Britain, state media reported.
Participants will hold closed-door talks on Monday, with seminars on topics such as addressing maritime security challenges. They will also discuss the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, a set of guidelines formulated a decade ago, meant to de-escalate tensions between militaries at sea. It has not since been updated to cover drone warfare.
A January preliminary meeting discussed the creation of a working group to prevent drone collisions at sea, state media reported.
The event overlaps with annual US-Philippines large-scale joint military drills beginning on Monday, which will occur outside Philippine territorial waters for the first time.
Beijing ‘harassment’
Tensions are particularly high around the Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal in the South China Sea, where Manila has accused Beijing of “harassment,” including the use of water cannons against Philippine vessels.The United States, Japan and the Philippines signed a cooperation agreement at a trilateral summit last week, where leaders expressed concerns over China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior” in the South China Sea, which Beijing slammed as “bloc politics.”
“The US-Philippines joint drills this time cover a bigger region, involve more troops and include exercises out of its original defensive scope such as antisubmarine and antimissile drills,” said Cao Weidong, a military expert and former researcher at China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Naval Military Studies Research Institute.
“It is not an issue when the US carries out defensive drills with the Philippines, but when these drills become offensive in nature and pose a threat to neighboring countries, we must not only be on high alert but also respond.”
However, Washington and China resumed top-level military contact on Tuesday, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III speaking to his Chinese counterpart for the first time in almost two years, as both countries seek to restore military ties. This month, US and Chinese military officials met in Hawaii.
China is hosting the multilateral meeting for the first time since 2014, coinciding this year with the 75th anniversary of the PLA Navy on Tuesday.
Beijing aims to expand its oceangoing fleet, which some analysts predict will become the world’s biggest by 2035. —REUTERS
