Free Republic

Chinese media reports that beginning today the People’ Liberation Army (PLA) will hold six days of military exercises in the East China Sea, a message, analysts say, to the U.S. Navy not to steam its carrier battle groups too close to Chinese shores. While a Chinese military official said the drills are routine, observers say the anti-carrier exercise is intended to pressure the U.S. Navy not to hold joint exercises with the carrier USS George Washington and South Korean ships in the Yellow Sea. Respected China analyst Andrew Erickson says the live fire training aims to demonstrate China’s ability to...

A public announcement saying that the Chinese navy will kick-off a six-day exercise tomorrow in the East China Sea that will feature live ammunition has stirred speculation about the timing of the drill. A fleet under the PLA will take part in the drill from tomorrow to July 5 in waters off Zhengjiang's east coast in the East China Sea, according to a notice published Sunday on the local Wenzhou Evening News at the request of the fleet. The drill will be held from midnight to 6 pm every day. All irrelevant ships are prohibited from entering the region during...

The other day we linked to a piece by a Navy commander warning of increasingly activist Chinese naval exercises in recent months. IISS has a new brief providing useful detail on a number of recent Chinese sorties into the South China Sea. Two exercises in March and April were the first of any real size beyond the First Island Chain, and “indicated that deployments beyond the chain were now official policy,” says London based IISS. The flotillas contained the PLA’s most advanced warships, of Russian manufacture (Kilo class diesel electric subs and Sovremenny class destroyers). In March and April a...

For much of the Cold War, China's navy was little more than an elaborate coast guard. It was barely a blip on the maritime horizons of Japan and Southeast Asia. Today the Chinese armed forces are in the midst of an intense and sustained modernization program, and the navy has emerged as a key service for protecting and advancing national interests. It gets more than one-third of the declared military budget. China's navy, like those of other leading nations, aims to protect vital trade routes, project power and influence, and deter potential adversaries. What makes the Chinese navy significantly different...

The Chinese navy has been throwing its weight around in East Asia. A US Navy commander asks how much longer the US can do anything about it.On the night of March 26 the Cheonan, a South Korean Navy corvette patrolling in the Yellow Sea, mysteriously erupted in a cataclysmic explosion and sank to the bottom. The ship was just off Baengnyeong Island, near the Northern Limit Line, which is the armistice separation line between North and South Korea. Of the 104 crew on board, only 58 survived. Salvage operations confirm the ship was struck by a North Korean heavy torpedo...

BEIJING (AP) — A state-run newspaper said Monday that a Chinese submarine's reported collision with an underwater sonar apparatus towed by a U.S. destroyer last week in the South China Sea was likely an accident. The official China Daily cited Chinese military experts as saying the submarine's collision with the sonar array connected to the USS John S. McCain while sailing near the Philippines probably occurred due to a misjudgment of distance. Yin Zhuo, a senior researcher with the People's Liberation Army's Navy Equipment Research Center, said the American destroyer appeared to have failed to detect the submarine, while the...

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2009 – The United States will continue to sail ships on missions in international waters, a Defense Department official said here today. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the March 8 incident in the South China Sea in which five Chinese ships surrounded the USNS Impeccable -- an unarmed Military Sealift Command vessel – won’t hinder the United States from using international sea lanes. The United States protested the Chinese activity to China’s foreign ministry in Beijing and to the defense attache at the Chinese Embassy here. China rejected the U.S. protests today, and maintains the Impeccable violated...