On Thursday, China announced its plan to hold a joint naval drill with Russian Federation in September aimed at strengthening the two countries’ cooperation.
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The air and sea drills are aimed at deepening relations between the two militaries and boosting their capacity to respond to maritime threats, said ministry spokesman Colonel Yang Yujun.
The Chinese defense ministry has described the joint military operation as “routine” and “aimed at strengthening the developing China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership”.
The ad is being displayed just weeks after a July 12 ruling by an global arbitration tribunal in The Hague in The Netherlands rejected Beijing’s historic claims to much of the South China Sea.
The dispute over the South China Sea, which includes the Spratly and the Paracel Islands, involves rival territorial claims from China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Chinese researchers have claimed that the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole – going down 300 meters below sea level – has been discovered in the highly disputed waters of the South China Sea.
Kerry spoke after meeting with Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay to discuss the Philippines’ victory over China before the Permanent Arbitration Court (PAC) over conflicting territorial claims. Beijing has called the ruling farcical and refuses to recognise it.
Returning from an Asean foreign ministers meeting in Vientiane, Mr. Sounry told reporters that accusations that Cambodia “vetoed” the ruling’s inclusion at the request of China-which promised the government more than half a billion dollars in aid this month-were false.
China has recently taken part in US -led multinational naval drills in the Pacific and a USA defense official said he did not expect the China-Russia exercises to affect US military activity or behavior in the South China Sea.
The report said the same picture was posted on the Vietnam Airlines website, with “distorting content” about the situation in the South China Sea.
UNITED States Ambassador Philip Goldberg on Thursday reiterated that the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement is not directly related to the country’s dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea but is more about helping the Philippines as a close ally. While the territories have been parcelled out and claimed by the various Asian nations, China says most of the sea belongs to it.
“I think the United States has set the precedent and so China has said that this is a matter of its sovereignty”.
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Chinese nationals leave Vietnam because of rising tensions caused by the South China Sea dispute.
