ACTIVITIES IN PRESENCE
The training this week come after a quarter of anxious skirmishes between China and the Philippines over disputed islands in the region, during which Chinese ships and Chinese vessels collided and fired water cannons at Philippine boats.
According to one expert, Beijing wanted to make the South China Sea” a Chinese-controlled lake and a strategic chokepoint for additional places.”
According to Michael Raska, an associate professor and defense analyst at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, the South China Sea is “becoming… a key defensive territory for China.”
He added that Beijing is also putting the region to the test of “reconnaissance and monitoring,” honing its capacity to “project existence and influence in the sea.”
According to Vietnam-based maritime analyst Duan Dang, who focuses on the South China Sea, China frequently sends warships to follow US plane carriers in the area and keep an eye on international military operations there, but this practice is very uncommon.
” RESOLUTE MEASURES” were taken.
With the foreign ministry claiming that Manila had “reneged on its terms, changed its plan, infringed on China’s independence and made threats repeatedly and triggered difficult conditions,” China insisted this week that the Philippines was to blame for the increase in conflicts.
On December 29, government spokeswoman Mao Ning declared that China would “take decisive measures against any infraction of our independence and provocation and strongly guard our regional sovereignty, maritime rights, and interests.”
The drills this week also come after Dong Jun, a former military chief and Southern Theater Command deputy commander, was named defense minister for Beijing.
Dong’s qualifications in “important areas of defense tension” and his position as a marine official may have contributed to his promotion, according to Chinese political expert Sheena Chestnut Greitens.
According to her,” He has administrative experience and qualifications in the problems presented by Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the East Chinese Sea.”