By Mark Episkopos, Managing Editor, Center for Military Modernization
Dueling drills by China and U.S. allies underline a new spate of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region at a time when both Washington and Beijing are increasingly defining one another as an existential threat.
Australian and Filipino forces, supported by U.S. Marines, practiced retaking an island seized by hostile forces in joint exercises last week. The drills, involving 1,200 Australian, 560 Filipino, and 120 U.S. troops, were attended by Ferdinand Marcos Jr, president of the Philippines, and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles. The drills were joined by two cutting-edge Australian F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighters and several warships including the HMAS Canberra.
“The message that we want to convey to the region and to the world from an exercise of this kind is that we are two countries committed to the global rules-based order,” Marles said in a news conference following the drills. “We are committed to an idea of a world in which disputes are determined by reference to international law.”
Manila has accused Chinese forces of blocking vessels belonging to the Philippine Coast Guard in parts of the contested Spratly Islands. A video released by Filipino authorities earlier this month appears to show a Chinese Coast Guard ship firing a water cannon at a Philippine ship running a resupply mission in one of the disputed areas.
The Australia-Philippines-U.S. drills were accompanied by a separate round of joint exercises held by Japan, Australia, and the U.S. in the South China Sea. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s largest destroyer, Izumo, took part in the exercises. The Izumo is being converted into a de-facto aircraft carrier capable of accommodating F-35B jet fighters, with a second round of renovations scheduled to begin by 2025.
President Marcos Jr. has approved plans for joint patrols with the US and Australia in the face of China’s mounting efforts to enforce its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Exercises conducted by the U.S. and its allies in the South China Sea come on the heels of Chinese military drills, involving as many as forty-two aircraft and eight ships, around Taiwan earlier this month. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command described the drills, which followed Taiwanese vice president William Lai’s visit to the United States, as “a serious warning” against “Taiwan independence separatist forces.”
Vice Admiral Karl Thomas, commander of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said on Sunday that China’s “aggressive behavior” in the South China Sea cannot be left unchecked. “You have to challenge people I would say operating in a grey zone. When they’re taking a little bit more and more and pushing you, you’ve got to push back, you have to sail and operate,” Thomas told Reuters.
Investor and prominent China observer Kyle Bass warned earlier this month that Beijing will attack Taiwan by the end of 2024, a claim with which other high-profile analysts have disagreed. Yet, however unlikely, a Taiwan invasion scenario is a real contingency for which the U.S. military must continue to prepare. War games conducted since 2018 have painted a bleak picture of U.S. ability to repel a full-scale Chinese assault on Taiwan. Simulations conducted in 2021 resulted in U.S. forces successfully fending off a Chinese attack, but at a steep cost to U.S. and Taiwanese forces. A series of war games organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in 2023 reached similar conclusions, forecasting a costly U.S. victory premised on a number of core assumptions including Taipei’s unshakeable will to fight, a sufficiently rapid and decisive U.S. military response, the ability of U.S. forces to freely operate from American bases in Japan, the continued flow of U.S. military aid to Taiwan, and further efforts to expand the U.S. arsenal of long-range anti-ship cruise missiles.
Mark Episkopos is the new Managing Editor of the Center for Military Modernization. Episkopos is a journalist, researcher, and analyst writing on national security and international relations issues. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in history at American University.
