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Nov 24, 2023

ASEAN to hold first joint military drills in South China Sea

Asia A worker adjusts an Association of Southeast Asian

Asia

A worker adjusts an Association of Southeast Asian Nations flag at a meeting hall in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 28, 2021. (File photo: Reuters/Lim Huey Teng)

JAKARTA: Southeast Asian nations have agreed to hold their first joint military drills in the South China Sea, Indonesian officials said on Thursday (Jun 8), as tensions grow over China's increasing assertiveness in the region.

"We will hold joint military drills in the North Natuna Sea," Indonesian military chief Yudo Margono said after a meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) defence chiefs in Bali, state news agency Antara reported.

They will take place in September and involve all 10 members of the bloc as well as observer member Timor-Leste, he said.

That would include junta-ruled Myanmar, where the military has overthrown a civilian leader and overseen a bloody crackdown on dissent that has resulted in wide-ranging United States and European Union sanctions.

Margono said that the exercises will focus on maritime security and rescue, and will not involve combat operations.

"It is about ASEAN centrality," he said.

The bloc's members have held naval drills with the US before but never military exercises as a bloc on its own.

The announcement comes after Washington called on Beijing to stop "provocative" behaviour in the disputed waterway after a near-collision with a Philippine vessel and a Chinese fighter pilot's dangerous manoeuvre near an American surveillance aircraft.

Chinese vessels have also occasionally intruded into the Indonesian-claimed waters of North Natuna where the drills will take place, prompting protests in Jakarta.

China says that most of the South China Sea is its own despite competing claims from Southeast Asian nations including Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Beijing's ships have patrolled the area and when confronted have invoked China's so-called "nine-dash line" - an area it claims but is contested by its neighbours - to justify its alleged historic rights to the waters.

At a summit last month, ASEAN leaders discussed "serious incidents" in the South China Sea and ongoing negotiations for a code of conduct aimed at reducing the risk of conflict there.

ASEAN's principles of consensus and non-interference have hamstrung its ability to take action, critics say

The bloc will hold its next leaders' summit in Jakarta in September.