begin quote from:
China, Russia Plan Naval Drills in South China Sea
| Wall Street Journal | - |
BEIJING—China
and Russia will hold joint naval exercises in the South China Sea in
September, the Chinese Defense Ministry said, amid heightened regional
tension following an international tribunal's rejection of Beijing's
maritime claims there.
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ENLARGE
The Chinese destroyer
DDG-112 Harbin fires its gun during joint drills with Russia in the
Yellow Sea in 2012. The two countries plan drills in the South China Sea
in September.
Photo:
Associated Press
China’s defense-ministry spokesman, Senior Col. Yang Yujun, gave few details at a monthly news conference on Thursday but said the drills were “routine” and not directed at any other countries.
However, they are the first joint exercises in the South China Sea between China and Russia, which have been strengthening defense ties in recent years in part due to a shared interest in countering pressure over their military activities from the U.S. and its allies.
The joint drills will be the first scheduled by any countries in the South China Sea since the tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled overwhelmingly against China on July 12 in a case brought by the Philippines over Beijing’s maritime claims.
“This is a routine exercise between the two armed forces, aimed at strengthening the developing China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership,” Col. Yang said. “The exercise is not directed against third parties.” Russian media reported the Chinese announcement but there was no immediate confirmation from the Russian defense ministry.
Elissa Slotkin, the acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, said Thursday that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is pushing the boundaries on what Russian foreign policy is going to be about in the next decade.”
Ms. Slotkin, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, said, “There is this disgruntled feeling about how the end of the Cold War went for them. And I think Putin is playing on that with the public, his public.”
Moscow and Beijing were once rivals for leadership of the Communist world, and fought a brief border conflict in 1969. Suspicions between them endure, especially over Beijing’s growing influence in Central Asia, and a much-vaunted energy partnership has largely stalled.
But they have often found common cause in blocking initiatives from the U.S. and its allies on the U.N. Security Council, where they are both among the five veto-wielding permanent members. In the past few years, they have also forged closer defense ties as both have come under pressure from the U.S. and its allies over their military activities around their own borders.
In 2014, Russia and China held joint naval exercises in the East China Sea for the first time, a few months after a flare-up in a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo over a cluster of islands.
In May last year, China and Russia held drills in European waters for the first time—in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea—in what many Western officials saw as a show of solidarity following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Those were followed by more drills in the Sea of Japan in August.
The U.S. and some of its allies have urged China to abide by the tribunal’s ruling on the South China Sea and accused Beijing of trying to assert its claims by force, including by building seven fortified artificial islands in disputed waters. China calls the ruling invalid, claiming the tribunal had no jurisdiction in the case. It counts Russia among dozens of countries that it says have backed its position. Moscow has been more circumspect in its public position, however, saying that claimants should seek a diplomatic settlement based on international law.
Russia also has close defense ties with Vietnam, another country whose claims overlap with Beijing’s in the South China Sea. Hanoi, however, has been seeking improved relations with the U.S. in response to concerns about Chinese assertiveness. During a visit there in May, President Barack Obama agreed to lift a decades-old ban on American arms sales to Vietnam.
—Damian Paletta contributed to this article.
Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com 
