This year’s “Joint Sea-2014” maritime exercise between China and Russia, which ran from May 20-25, was noticeable in that the drill coincided with a state visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China, which lasted May 20-21. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping both attended the exercise’s official opening and praised the drills for enhancing mutual cooperation and security. Putin argued that “the military ties are an important part of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination and called for enhanced cooperation to tackle various threats and challenges to safeguard regional and world peace and stability.” According to Xi, they “would showcase the two sides’ resolve in responding to threats and challenges as well as safeguarding regional security and stability” in addition to “display the new level of strategic mutual trust and coordination between the two countries.”
Richard Weitz
During the second day of Putin’s visit, Russia and China announced the signing of a major gas deal. There was also media speculation of further Russian arms sales to China, to include advanced air and missile defense system such as the S-400, the Lada class air-independent propulsion submarines, and Su-35 multirole fighter jets, which would enhance China’s ability to project power over disputed territories. These developments confirmed for many the impression of a further strengthening of the Russia-China partnership, which until now has been broad but not deep.
That Joint Sea-2014 coincided with a period when both countries had tense ties with the United States and its allies led many to see the drills as directed against Washington, with Beijing and Moscow trying to emphasize they would support each other’s security. The Chinese announced the exercise the day after U.S. President Barack Obama had left Japan, where he had reassured Tokyo that their bilateral security treaty covered the islands disputed with Japan. Chinese officials protested against Obama’s comments, and the even more explicit ones made by the U.S. Defense Secretary at about the same time, as challenging China’s territorial integrity and maritime interests. The Chinese Navy said the exercise was not directed at third parties, but one Chinese analyst likened the naval drill to psychological warfare, a way to threaten countries involved in territorial disputes with China.
However, while Joint Sea-2014 might seem a Sino-Russian response to the countries’ mutual troubles with the West, its occurrence at this time is coincidental. Since 2012, China and Russia have held annual naval exercises, with the Chinese defense ministry reporting in 2013 that they would be “normalized and institutionalized.” The 2012 exercise occurred in late April, while the 2013 drill happened in early July, so a Sino-Russian naval exercise was probably going to occur sometime this spring or summer in any case. Aligning the opening to Putin’s sojourn to Shanghai made imminent sense.
Although the specific timing of the Russia-China exercises seem unrelated to any specific U.S. statement or action, a general Chinese desire to show displeasure and display capabilities in response to the heightened tensions with Japan, supported by United States, is probable. Chinese analysts have been complaining throughout the Obama administration that the “Asia Pivot” has been encouraging Japan, the Philippines, and other Asian countries, most recently Vietnam, to more assertively challenge Beijing’s territorial claims. They dismiss U.S. arguments that the United States has no preference regarding the outcome of these disputes, but only wanted them resolved without the use of force. The military exercises would underline China’s assertion of sovereignty and serve as a warning and deter the United States.
China also tried to use the recent exercise to legitimize the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) that Beijing declared in November 2013 but which Japan, the United States, and other countries have been contesting. Joint Sea-2014 included air identification drills. Although they are routine in naval exercises to ensure that civilian planes are not targeted, Li Jie, an expert at the PLA’s Naval Military Studies Research Institute, explicitly claimed that Moscow’s participation in the air identification drills “showed [that it] supported China’s move to set up the zone.” Although no Russian official or expert confirmed this interpretation, and Moscow has generally been seeking in recent months to improve ties with Tokyo, the PRC government naturally wants the world to think this is the case.
Besides this attempt at making it seem as though Russia supports its ADIZ, China also appears to have used the joint exercises as an opportunity to take concrete steps in the zone’s defense. Until now, China has done little to actually interfere with U.S. or Japanese “violations” of the ADIZ. However, on May 24, at the height of Joint Sea-2014, two Chinese fighters flew threateningly close to Japanese planes that, according to China, had violated the ADIZ and come to watch the China-Russia drills up close.
The Chinese explanation for the buzzing of the Japanese fighters is odd. An ADIZ would only require the planes to identify themselves to China, not avoid flying in international waters, where the exercise was occurring. In any case, the U.S. government correctly took the drills, like the major gas deal, in stride, not expressing great alarm against the natural and expected economic and security cooperation between two major neighboring powers, China and Russia, which share common as well as conflicting interests with each other and the United States.
Richard Weitz is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute.
