Two United States (US) Navy aircraft carrier strike groups have entered the volatile South China Sea for training, the US Department of Defence announced on Monday. In a thinly veiled reference to China, a senior US official said that the exercise aimed to “reassure allies” and demonstrate Washington’s resolve to “counter malign influence.”
According to a statement released by the Department, the groups, led by their flagships USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, had begun operations in the South China Sea on Sunday. It added that both groups were exercising with the Japanese navy in the Philippine Sea, which includes waters to the east of Taiwan.
The statement further explained that both sides will carry out several exercises including “anti-submarine warfare operations, air warfare operations and maritime interdiction operations to strengthen combat readiness.” Without providing additional details, the department asserted that the training will be held “in accordance with international law in international waters.”
“Operations like these allow us to improve our combat credible capability, reassure our allies and partners and demonstrate our resolve as a Navy to ensure regional stability and counter malign influence,” Rear Admiral J.T. Anderson, commander of the strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, explained of the ongoing exercise.
Operations in the #PhilippineSea, Jan. 22, w/ships & aircraft from #USSCarlVinson & #USSAbrahamLincoln Carrier Strike Groups, Carrier Air Wings 9 & 2, #USSAmerica & #USSEssex Amphibious Ready Groups joined by elements from the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force [@jmsdf_pao_eng]. pic.twitter.com/OvOj1QlbbG
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) January 23, 2022
While China is yet to comment on the presence of the American vessels in the region it claims as its own, it has criticised Washington for its “provocations” in the past. In response, the US Navy has often argued that “under international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention, the ships of all states, including their warships, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea.” On this basis, the US Navy frequently carries out such missions in the South China Sea to challenge the Chinese territorial claims.
Only last week, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said that it had expelled the USS Benfold, a US warship that was found trespassing in China’s territorial waters near the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea.
In a statement released by the PLA’s Southern Theater Command, spokesperson and Senior Colonel Tian Junli said that the US was the “biggest destroyer” of the region’s safety and stability and warned the US to “immediately stop such provocative actions, otherwise it will bear the serious consequences of unforeseen events.”
The US Navy asserted that the Benfold was simply conducting what the navy calls freedom of navigation operation “in accordance with international law.”