Asean steers between two powers with joint US military exercise in South China Sea
- Five-day drill follows similar exercise with China last year, but Asian bloc is trying to avoid favouring either power
- Manoeuvres, led by US and Thailand, involved eight warships, four aircraft and more than 1,000 personnel
Asean’s first joint exercise with the US, which wrapped up on Friday, is the latest effort by the Asian bloc to rebalance its military engagement with Beijing and Washington, while avoiding being seen to tilt towards either of the two powers in the region, analysts said.
The five-day exercise was an opportunity for the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to parade their military presence in the disputed South China Sea alongside the superpower as both the US and China vie to curb each other’s influence in the region.
The exercise, led by the US and Thailand, involved eight warships, four aircraft and more than 1,000 personnel. Participants also included Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, a visiting fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the key objectives of both exercises was to enhance understanding and the skills needed to deal with emerging maritime security threats together.