FALCON POWERS – On Friday, China announced that it is conducting joint military exercises with Russia along its southern coast following the NATO summit in Washington and a warning to Japan about an increasing threat to Beijing’s strong ties with Moscow.
Beijing rejected the warnings and described them as “irresponsible and provocative” just hours after China’s Defense Ministry announced that the Chinese and Russian militaries had launched the “Joint Sea 2024” exercises in “early July” that will continue until mid-month. The ministry said the drills in the waters and airspace around Zhanjiang city in southern Guangdong province aim to:
- Demonstrate the determination and capabilities of the two sides to jointly address maritime security threats and maintain global and regional peace and stability.
- The exercises “will deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination between China and Russia in the new era.”
The ministry noted that these maneuvers were carried out according to the annual plan for military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow. This announcement came in the same week that NATO leaders met in Washington to reaffirm their support for Ukraine, which is facing a Russian military operation.
China and Russia have drawn closer in recent years and have promoted their friendship as “limitless,” as they share adversarial relations with the NATO alliance.
In a statement on Wednesday, alliance leaders said that China has become an “enabler” of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting Beijing to warn the alliance against “provoking confrontation.”
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday said Beijing “strongly condemns the irresponsible and provocative remarks made by the NATO Secretary-General against China, which are deeply mired in Cold War mentality and ideological bias.”
