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US, China join naval drills in Indonesian waters despite rifts
Australia and Russia were also expected to send warships.
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he United States and China have sent warships to the multinational naval drills that began in Indonesia on Monday, despite the rifts between the two powers.
Washington and Beijing are engaged in fierce competition on diplomatic, military, technological and economic fronts.
The US military has stepped up its Asia-Pacific operations to counter an increasingly assertive China, which has recently staged several rounds of war drills around Taiwan.
But both dispatched warships to the 2023 Multilateral Naval Exercise (MNEK) hosted by Indonesia in its eastern waters off Sulawesi island from Monday to Thursday.
The US Navy has sent a littoral combat ship to the exercise, a US embassy spokesperson in Jakarta told AFP on Sunday.
The drills would allow the US to "join together with like-minded nations, our allies and our partners to work on solving common challenges" such as humanitarian and disaster response, the spokesperson said.
The Chinese defense ministry said last week it would send a destroyer and a frigate at the invitation of the Indonesian navy.
Australia and Russia were also expected to send warships, according to an Indonesian military list seen by AFP.
Officials said there would be 17 foreign vessels involved in the drills, which would focus on non-military operations with key allies.
"MNEK is a non-war training which prioritizes maritime cooperation in the region," Indonesian Navy spokesperson I Made Wira Hady said in a statement.
Washington and Beijing have clashed this year over a number of Asia-Pacific issues including Taiwan, a self-ruled, US-backed island that China considers its territory.
They have also been involved in a diplomatic tussle over Pacific island nations.
The US navy has released a video of what it called an "unsafe interaction" in the Taiwan Strait, in which a Chinese warship crossed in front of a US destroyer in the sensitive waterway, a risky incident amid deteriorating Chinese-US ties.
The encounter comes as both countries have traded blame for not holding military talks, with disagreements between the two over everything from trade and Taiwan to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and raises the specter of future face-offs that could spiral out of control.
The US military said the USS Chung-Hoon, a destroyer; and Canada's HSMC Montreal, a frigate, had been conducting a "routine" transit of the strait on Saturday when the Chinese ship had cut in front of the US vessel, coming within 137 meters of it.
In the video, released by the US navy late on Sunday, a Chinese warship can clearly be seen sailing across the path of the Chung-Hoon in calm waters. The Chung-Hoon does not change course.
A voice can be heard in English, apparently sending a radio message to the Chinese ship, warning against "attempts to limit freedom of navigation", though the exact wording is unclear because of wind noise.
The maneuver of a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait during an encounter with a US destroyer was completely reasonable, legal, professional and "safe", a spokesperson at China's foreign ministry said at a press conference on Monday.
On Saturday night, China's military rebuked the US and Canada for "deliberately provoking risk" with the rare joint sailing.
Chinese military commentator Song Zhongping told Reuters this "point blank interception" had been a demonstration of both the capabilities and "courage" of China's navy.
"The more intensified the provocation from the United States, the stronger the countermeasures from China," Song said.
It was the second such encounter in recent days.
On May 26, a Chinese fighter jet carried out an "unnecessarily aggressive" maneuver near a US military plane over the South China Sea in international airspace, according to the US.
"It seems to me that Beijing has instructed its forces to respond more assertively against what it believes are encroaching US and allied forces," said Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, a US think tank.
"By doing so, China is only increasing the chances for miscalculation, namely ships or aircraft accidentally colliding, that could then spiral into armed conflict," he added.
In 2001, a US spy plane made an emergency landing on China's Hainan island after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet.
