He added that the joint drill is “routine” and “does not target any third party”.
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As tensions between neighboring governments in Southeast Asia remain high following the recent United Nations ruling on the South China Sea arbitration case, some citizens in concerned countries have equally kept their outrage aflame in one form or another.
The video comes in the wake of a key ruling by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration two weeks ago, which rejected Beijing’s claims to most of the waters.
But they have often found common cause in blocking initiatives from the US and its allies on the U.N. Security Council, where they are both among the five veto-wielding permanent members.
“This is a routine exercise between the two armed forces, aimed at strengthening the developing China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership”, China’s defense ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said. As the U.S. Department of Defense noted in its 2016 report on China’s military activities, “Phase one in the Mediterranean focused on protecting sea lines of communications (SLOCs) and combating terrorism and phase two in the Sea of Japan featured simultaneous amphibious landings, joint air defense drills, and anti-surface ship drills”.
Outgoing Philippine ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia criticized Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. for failing to push for the inclusion of an worldwide court’s favorable ruling on the South China Sea dispute in the Asean joint communiqué despite strong global support for the Philippines’ case.
The United States had backed Manila’s case on the grounds that China’s claims to 85% of the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest trade routes, were a threat to freedom of navigation and worldwide law.
However, Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, don’t recognize China’s ownership of the area and have already staked their claim on it. In January, the U.S. sent a Navy destroyer through the South China Sea on a so-called freedom of navigation patrol, following a similar excursion last October.
“We should all be anxious that this case is going to go down as nothing more than a footnote because its impact was only as strong as the global community was going to make it”, said Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and worldwide Studies think-tank.
And, as time goes by, Russian Federation and China will only become closer strategic partners, to the exclusion of the USA and Washington’s own Pacific Rim sphere of influence.
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Li Guoqiang, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies, said the border officials’ “provocative act” reflected “long-standing irrational emotions” among some Vietnamese people regarding the South China Sea issue.
