US, China join naval drills in Indonesia despite rifts
China says warship crossing in front of US destroyer was 'safe'
Tuesday, 6 June 2023
JAKARTA, June 05 (AFP): The United States (US) and China have sent warships to the multinational naval drills that began in Indonesia on Monday, despite the rifts between the two powers.
Washington and Beijing are engaged in fierce competition on diplomatic, military, technological and economic fronts.
The US military has stepped up its Asia-Pacific operations to counter an increasingly assertive China, which has recently staged several rounds of war drills around Taiwan.
But both dispatched warships to the 2023 Multilateral Naval Exercise (MNEK) hosted by Indonesia in its eastern waters off Sulawesi island from Monday to Thursday.
The US Navy has sent a littoral combat ship to the exercise, a US embassy spokesperson in Jakarta told AFP on Sunday.
The drills will allow the United States to "join together with like-minded nations, our allies and our partners to work on solving common challenges" such as humanitarian and disaster response, the spokesperson said.
The Chinese defence ministry said last week that it would send a destroyer and a frigate at the invitation of the Indonesian navy.
Australia and Russia were also expected to send warships, according to an Indonesian military list seen by AFP.
Officials said there would be 17 foreign vessels involved in the drills, which will focus on non-military operations with key allies.
Meanwhile, the maneuver of a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait during an encounter with a US destroyer was completely reasonable, legal, professional and "safe," a spokesperson at China's foreign ministry said at a press conference on Monday.
The US Navy on Sunday released a video of what it called an "unsafe interaction" in the Taiwan Strait, in which a Chinese warship crossed in front of a US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday.
The encounter comes as both countries trade blame for not holding military talks - with disagreements between the two over everything from trade and Taiwan to Russia's invasion of Ukraine - and raises the spectre of future face-offs that could spiral out of control.
The US military said the USS Chung-Hoon, a destroyer, and Canada's HSMC Montreal, a frigate, were conducting a "routine" transit of the strait on Saturday when the Chinese ship cut in front of the US vessel, coming within 150 yards (137 meters).