The US held at least 15 military drills jointly with its Indo-Pacific allies over the past four months to counteract the Russia-China military coalition and Chinese expansion in the region, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report delivered to the legislature yesterday.
The bureau is to report on “the influence of recent changes in the East Asian situation on Taiwan” at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today.
In its report, the bureau said that China, Russia and North Korea gathered at China’s large-scale military parade held in Beijing on Sept. 3 to demonstrate their alignment against the US, while the Chinese People’s Liberation Army more frequently conducted joint maritime and aerial drills and “gray zone” harassment in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea, attempting to challenge the regional order.
Photo: CNA
On the other hand, the US and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region engaged in bilateral or multilateral combat-oriented joint exercises, with allies from outside the region such as the UK, France, Canada and the Netherlands occasionally invited, to jointly counter the trilateral alignment and deter Chinese aggressive actions, it said.
Both the frequency and scale of such joint exercises reached a record high, the bureau said.
The US and its allies also reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, it said.
The US not only cooperated with Taiwan to bolster the global semiconductor supply chain, but also engaged in more strategic dialogues and information exchanges with Taiwan about the China’s political infiltration, military expansion, cognitive warfare and cyberattacks, seeking to unite democratic allies to counteract Chinese forces, the bureau said.
Data from the bureau showed that the US armed forces held at least 15 bilateral, trilateral or multilateral exercises along with its Indo-Pacific allies from July to this month, averaging at least three exercises per month.
These joint operations included the first Resolute Force Pacific exercise — which had seven participating countries — the Operation Highmast exercise held by the British Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group, the Bushido Guardian 25 exercise held by the US, Japan and Australia, and the ongoing Annualex 25 exercise led by the US and Japan, it said.
Taiwan’s Han Kuang military exercise, which ran from July 9 to 18, was held concurrently with the Resolute Force Pacific, the Cope Thunder and the Talisman Sabre exercises, the report said.
Although the Ministry of National Defense did not make remarks about such a coincidence, the attitude of the Indo-Pacific region’s democratic partners toward China’s military expansion is implicit in their actions.
The bureau said all these joint exercises focused on multidomain operations, including air superiority, maritime dominance, long-range, anti-ship warfare and mobile reinforcement, as well as cyberwarfare and space warfare, and sought to enhance interoperability.
For example, the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group took part in a joint maritime and aerial exercise with 12 countries — including the US, Japan, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Norway —- while it was conducting the Operation Highmast drills in the region, it said.
The US and its allies intensified their joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific region for a reason — to counteract the China-Russia military coalition and deter Chinese expansion, it added.
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