China joins Russia for Vostok war games as ties with US, allies worsen
- Week-long war games take on added significance in view of Ukraine invasion as well as growing Western censure of Moscow and Beijing
- Chinese and Russian warships holding first joint drills in Sea of Japan sends ‘important message’ to Tokyo and Washington, analyst says
Some 50,000 soldiers from 14 nations – also including India, Syria and several ex-Soviet states – are participating in the Vostok 2022 war games, a week-long Russia-hosted exercise that kicked off on Thursday.
The drills will involve deployment, planning and combat training in eastern Russia and the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk, Russia’s defence ministry said.
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This edition of the Vostok games takes on added significance – coming a little over six months since Russia invaded Ukraine and also the first since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
China has rejected calls to condemn Russia’s military action in Ukraine and criticised sanctions imposed on Moscow.
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All three major branches of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, its ground, naval and air forces – mostly from the Northern Theatre Command – will be taking part in the games for the first time, state news agency Xinhua reported.
The Chinese contingent is also smaller this time, compared with 3,200 soldiers participating in 2018. There was no official explanation for the scaled-back numbers.
Artyom Lukin, associate professor at the Far Eastern Federal University’s regional and international studies school in Vladivostok, said China’s participation was far from merely symbolic because it had sent thousands of troops outside its borders despite the stringent quarantine they have to undergo upon returning to one of the last zero-Covid strongholds in the world.
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Russia and China, which reiterated their “no-limits” friendship just weeks before the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, are increasingly seen by the West as a security threat and a challenge to the US-led international order.
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Moscow’s defence ministry said 140 aircraft and 60 ships in all would take part in the Vostok drills, and warships from the Russian Pacific Fleet had begun their deployment on Thursday.
The drills, which will run until September 7, are the latest in a series of joint military exercises involving China and Russia in recent years.
Chinese and Russian warships holding joint manoeuvres in the Sea of Japan for the first time sends an “important message” to Tokyo and Washington, Lukin said.
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“China is definitely signalling that it’s ready to build a coalition force with Russia in northeast Asia,” he said, pointing at their common security interests in the region. “They have not yet built up such a force, but the direction is clearly there.”
The potential coalition would first and foremost be aimed at the US-Japan alliance, he added.
One of the seven training areas of Russia’s eastern military district – designated for the Vostok war games – is on the Russian-controlled island of Iturup, part of the Kuril archipelago also claimed by Japan as the Northern Territories.
China has sent three warships and more than 3,000 vehicles and pieces of equipment to the exercise, Xinhua reported.
“This shows that trust has deepened between China and Russia in the military arena,” former PLA colonel Yue Gang said. “It’s another great step forward [in the relationship].”
He said the sea drills would be valuable experience for the PLA Navy and an opportunity to learn from the Russian side, which has actual combat experience from the ongoing military action in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the Syrian civil war.
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The naval drills would be a response to the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy that targets China, Yue added.
Countries taking part in the Vostok exercises are mostly members and observers of the post-Soviet Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Mongolia, Syria, Algeria, Nicaragua, Laos, and the former Soviet states of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus will either send troops or participate as observers, Moscow said earlier.
