Yahoo NewsBEIJING (Reuters) – China on Monday confirmed that it will participate for the first time in a major U.S.-hosted naval drill this month, sending four ships including a destroyer and frigate, even as deep military distrust persists between the two countries.
Beijing’s agreement to join the drills comes at a moment of heightened tension in the disputed East and South China Seas, and growing unease in the United States over China’s rapid military buildup and its cyber capabilities.
The Rim of the Pacific exercise, known as RIMPAC, is billed as the world’s largest international maritime exercise, with 22 nations and more than 40 ships and submarines participating the last time it was held off Hawaii in 2012.
Not all the participants are treaty allies with the United States. Last year’s participants included Russia and India.
But China has never participated in the event, although it did send observers to RIMPAC in 1998, the Pentagon says. U.S. officials said in March that China had accepted the invitation. [ID:nL1N0CEAGF]
The official People’s Liberation Army Daily, quoting a navy spokesman, said it would be the first time the Chinese navy would be participating in the joint exercises organized by the U.S. navy.
Besides the two warships, a supply ship, a hospital ship and two helicopters will also be part of the Chinese delegation, the newspaper added.
The exercises the Chinese navy will join run the gamut from cannon firing exercises, maritime security actions, and maritime warship exercises to military medicine exchanges, humanitarian aid and disaster reduction besides diving drills, it said.
A medical forum will also be held for the Chinese and the U.S. sides, with visits to each other’s ships, the paper added.
The exercise is due to be held in the middle of June in the waters near the U.S. Pacific island of Guam, while Singapore and Brunei will also send ships, it said.
Last week China’s Defense Ministry slammed the Pentagon for a report estimating China’s true military spending exceeded $145 billion last year and warning that China was stepping up its military modernization program. [ID:nL1N0ON06M]
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
http://news.yahoo.com/china-confirms-attendance-u-hosted-naval-exercises-june-043716397.html
Good. They can use the chinese ships for target practice.
This just confirms that the current ‘crisis’ is theater.
If the chinese were actual enemies why would they be asked to, and participate in this exercise?
To install one world government, one needs to create a global crisis.
This is all about the psychopathic need to control every molecule on the planet.
-flek
The communist Chinese are the allies of the international communist insurgency that has captured our highest seats of power. The exercises are no different than the foreigners being brought in and trained at every other job that is to be taken from an American.
Take a long gander at your stupid box. More and more of those in the positions of power have slant eyes and you will see the same with the military as the United States is being gradually handed over to the People’s Republic of China.
We are experiencing an invasion and as to date, this invasion is meeting no resistance. Look at what is happening down on our southern border. The third world communists are pouring across in an attempt to hand the American nationals’ political power over to foreigners who will have no objection to Harry Reid and his son handing our national lands over to the Chi-Cong.
We are being invaded. Those we have hired to guard our border have turned themselves over to the enemy. That leaves us, we better get busy before it is too late.