A Russian corvette enters the port of Zhanjiang during the Joint Sea-2024 China-Russia naval exercise, in Zhanjiang, China, in this still image from video released July 13, 2024. Russian Defence Ministry via Reuters

China and Russia’s naval forces on July 14 kicked off a joint exercise at a military port in southern China, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine.

The Chinese defence ministry said in a brief statement forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party.

The exercise, which began in Guangdong province on July 14 and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally, CCTV reported on July 13, adding it would include anti-missile exercises, sea strikes and air defence.

Xinhua News Agency reported that the Chinese and Russian naval forces carried out on-map military simulation and tactical coordination exercises after the opening ceremony in Zhanjiang.

Rising tension between NATO, China

The joint drills came on the heels of China’s latest tensions with NATO allies last week.

Also read: NATO expresses concern over deepening Russia-China ties

The sternly worded final communiqué, approved by the 32 NATO members at their summit in Washington, made clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance, calling Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

NATO and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.

In response, China accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia. Its foreign ministry maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the war in Ukraine.

Also read: China tells NATO not to create chaos in Asia; rejects label of ‘enabler’ of Russia’s Ukraine war

Last week, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on routine patrol in the Bering Sea also came across several Chinese military ships in international waters but within the U.S. exclusive economic zone, American officials said. Its crew detected three vessels approximately 200 km north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, which mark a separation and linkage between the North Pacific and the Bering Sea.

Later, a fourth ship was spotted approximately 84 miles (135 kilometers) north of the Amukta Pass. The U.S. side said the Chinese naval vessels operated within international rules and norms.

Warsaw:

China is staging army drills with Belarus this week at NATO’s eastern border, in a sign of escalating tensions between Beijing and the US-led defence alliance.

The joint “antiterrorist” exercises on Russian ally Belarus’s soil near the Polish border come as NATO leaders gather for a summit in Washington, with the war in nearby Ukraine high on their agenda.

With relations between NATO on the one hand and China and Russia on the other at a low ebb, analysts believe that Beijing wanted to send the alliance a warning message with the timing of the drills.

Sino-Belarusian exercises have taken place before, but this is the first time since Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine, a NATO ally, in February 2022.

The exercises began July 8 in Brest, a city right on the border with Poland, according to a statement issued on Wednesday by the Chinese defence ministry.

The statement said the manoeuvres will last until mid-July, but did not give the exact number of Chinese soldiers involved.

Both sides are working to “improve combat techniques and deepen cooperation and communication between the two armies”, the statement added.

Chinese diplomatic officials insisted that the exercises were “not aimed at any country in particular”.

But Poland’s defence ministry slammed the timing of the exercises.

It warned of “the risk of the operations in question being used for disinformation and propaganda purposes… to coincide with the NATO summit”.

However small in scale, the exercises still involve China deploying troops on NATO’s doorstep, and to a country Russia used as a launchpad for its invasion of Ukraine.

And the exercises come as Beijing, one of Moscow’s key partners is also experiencing increasingly tense relations with NATO.

Strategic signal 

Analysts believe that the date and location of the exercises were not chosen by chance, arguing that China wanted to send NATO a message.

“Multilateral exercises are often used to send political signals,” Kelly Grieco of the Stimson Center foreign policy and defence think tank told AFP.

Indeed, she argues that when it comes to military drills, “it’s much more about political signal more than for the exercise itself”.

She points out that China had already carried out anti-terrorism exercises in Belarus four times between 2011 and 2018, but had not done so since.

That they are taking place “that close to the border is part of the signalling” too, she added.

Countries often organise their joint exercises to coincide with developments abroad — not least of them China, added Alice Ekman, senior analyst for Asia at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS).

“In April 2023, the Chinese held exercises with Russia in the East China Sea, close to Japanese islands, on the eve of a trilateral US-Japan-South Korea summit to signal their opposition to such a summit being held,” Ekman told AFP.

Similarly, China staged military manoeuvres in the South China Sea in May 2024 as the US-Japan-Philippines-Australia meeting was in full swing, she added.

As well as moving closer to Russia, China is becoming increasingly hostile to NATO.

It accuses NATO of working to contain China at Washington’s instigation, with Beijing worried about the alliance’s expanding role in the Asia-Pacific region.

Moreover, China has never forgiven the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade by a NATO plane in 1999.

It also believes that the alliance has already overstepped its geographical sphere of influence in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.

NATO is perceived by China as “clearly hostile for historical reasons”, Ekman said.

But those reasons were becoming “increasingly strategic as the threat from China becomes an integral part of the organisation’s strategic thinking”, she added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)