China’s military will carry out drills regardless of foreign provocations and pressure, the Chinese Communist Party’s paper said yesterday, adding that exercises far out at sea like those conducted recently by its sole aircraft carrier will become normal.
China caused unease among some countries in the region last month when the carrier the Liaoning, accompanied by several warships, cruised around Taiwan and into the Pacific for what China called routine drills.
Earlier this month, Taiwan scrambled fighter jets and navy ships as the Liaoning then passed through the Taiwan Strait.
For its part, China was alarmed this month when US President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said China should be denied access to islands it has built in the contested South China Sea.
The People’s Daily said no amount of “word bombs,” such as Tillerson’s South China Sea remarks, could stop China’s military drills.
“These provocations, pressure, fantasies and over-exaggerations will not prevent the normal drills of the Chinese military,” the paper said in a commentary.
“The meddling and disruption of countries from outside the region can only run counter to the consensus of common interests that accords with this region and the world,” the paper said. “Henceforth, the Chinese military’s exercises far out at sea will become a kind of normal, extremely normal drills.”
China has invested billions of US dollars in an ambitious modernization program for its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces, especially its navy.
The PLA Navy has been exercising in waters far from home more often as it seeks to hone its operational abilities, and it has joined international anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia.
In 2015, five Chinese ships carried out exercises in international waters in the Bering Sea off the US state of Alaska.
China says it has a legitimate need to develop its “blue water” naval capabilities to protect the trade lanes on which the nation’s economy depends, to defend the interests of its citizens overseas and uphold its global obligations.
In 2015, a Chinese naval frigate evacuated foreign citizens from Yemen, marking the first time that China’s military has helped other countries evacuate their people during an international crisis.
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