China’s navy has conducted another round of drills in the South China Sea, a contested waterway where rival claimants the Philippines and Vietnam are ramping up land reclamation and construction.
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The People’s Liberation Army Navy did not specify where or when the training took place, saying only that the exercise was conducted “in late autumn”.
“A frigate detachment of the Southern Theatre Command Navy conducted a full training and assessment on air defence and missile interception, anti-surface attack and vessel damage control,” it said in a post on Chinese social media on Sunday.
The drills involved launching attacks on targets at sea and in the air while the Chinese vessel came under fire, followed by a search-and-attack exercise with another vessel acting as an adversary.
“The [navy assessors] … created a realistic environment, dynamic situations and practical tasks to increase the difficulty of the test,” it said.
Beijing claims almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea under its “nine-dash line”, a claim that overlaps with those of most of its Southeast Asian neighbours.