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As tensions rise between Beijing and Washington over the Chinese high-altitude balloon that the Air Force shot down last week, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are conducting exercises in the South China Sea.
According to a statement from the Navy's Seventh Fleet, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its strike group conducted drills on February 11 with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The statement did not say when the exercises started or when they would conclude.
In recent years, the U.S. military has increased its activity in the South China Sea and has formally rejected most of China's claims to the waters. Beijing shares a claim to the South China Sea along with the Phillippines and numerous other Southeast Asian countries.
The U.S. involved itself in the dispute over the waters and, under the Obama administration, began sailing warships near islands in the South China Sea that are controlled by Beijing.
The U.S. has been looking to expand its presence in the region under the Biden administration, and Washington recently signed a deal with the Phillippines, which will give the U.S. access to 4 more military sites in the country.
The current drills come after Beijing declined a call from U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, following the U.S. military shooting down a Chinese balloon in U.S. airspace. The Chinese government maintains that the balloon was a weather balloon, while Washington has claimed that it was a spy device.
While Beijing refused to take Austin's call, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, canceled a planned trip to China when the balloon was first discovered in U.S. airspace. Since shooting down the Chinese spy balloon, the U.S. military has downed at least two unidentified objects in U.S. airspace, but the White House does not believe the other objects are Chinese balloons.
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As North Korea announces plans to increase its nuclear weapons cache and tensions rise in the area, the U.S. and South Korea are reportedly planning to increase anti-submarine exercises in 2023. According to the Korea Times last week, the biannual “silent shark” drills will be “bigger than those of the past, given the North heightening tensions with its dozens of missile tests in recent months.”
Seol has stated that the increased exercises are needed due to the rising threat from North Korea, saying that the exercises with the U.S. are “designed to improve their capability to respond to increasing North Korean submarine threats, including its submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).
In October, concerns grew when North Korea responded to U.S.–South Korean military exercises by launching a KN-23 SLBM from an underwater reservoir which prompted concerns that the North had created a new launch platform for the missile.
Military exercises in the region have hit a recent high in 2022 as North Korea has conducted numerous nuclear tests and launched 2 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) just this month. With South Korea increasing its military exercises and the U.S. sending strategic assets to the area, tensions are mounting.
Pyongyang has denounced the U.S. military’s flyover earlier this month with nuclear-capable B-1B stealth bombers as a provocative act rather than as a maneuver that was part of a larger military exercise.
While Washington and Seoul plan next year’s anti-submarine exercises, North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un has boasted that North Korea will create “the world’s most powerful strategic force, the absolute force unprecedented in the century,” in reference to Pyongyang’s reported development of technology that can mount nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.
