China, Russia Military Ties Deepen With Naval Drill in East China Sea

China announced that it plans to hold joint naval drills with Russia in the East China Sea later this month.“These drills are regular exercises held by China and Russia’s navies, and the purpose is to deepen practical cooperation between the two militaries, to raise the ability to jointly deal with maritime security threats,” China’s Defense Ministry said in a statement published on its website.Voice of America reports that the joint naval drills will be held in late May off the coast of Shanghai. This is significantly north of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands that have been the source of ongoing tensions between Japan and China in recent years. Russia also has an ongoing territorial dispute with Japan over the Kuril Islands located even further north off the far eastern coast of Russia.

Few details have been released about the scope of the naval drills at this time.Still, the announcement is not surprising, and is not likely aimed at Japan in particular. As China’s Defense Ministry noted, Russia and China have a history of holding joint naval drills, and their military ties have grown stronger in recent years. For example, last July, Moscow and Beijing held a massive naval drill with live firing exercises off the coast of the Russian city of Vladivostok. According to Chinese media reports at the time, the drill was the People’s Liberation Army’s largest ever with a foreign country.


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