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US, China join naval drills in Indonesia despite tension
Washington and Beijing are engaged in fierce competition on diplomatic, military, technological and economic fronts.
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This handout photo from the US Navy taken on November 20, 2021 shows the US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Milius (DDG 69) sailing in the South China Sea. (AFP/US Navy/Omar-Kareem Powell)
T
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 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 will allow the United States 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 defence ministry said last week that it would send a destroyer and a frigate at the invitation of the Indonesian navy.
