Japan, U.S. partners hold dueling military drills with China in South China Sea

The Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Sazanami leaves Sasebo Naval Base in Saikai, Nagasaki Prefecture, in April 2012. | JIJI

by JESSE JOHNSON
September 28, 2024

The first Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) warship to transit the Taiwan Strait earlier this week joined naval and air forces from Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and the U.S. for joint military exercises in the disputed South China Sea on Saturday.

Highlighting the ramped-up tensions in the area, the joint show of force came as the Chinese military's Southern Theater Command said that it had also organized its air and sea forces to carry out drills and patrols of the sea and airspace around the flash point Scarborough Shoal in the strategic waterway.

The drills by the U.S. military and its partners — the fourth iteration of the Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity — were held within an unidentified area of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the strategic waterway, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement.