More trouble brewing in Asian waters?
Posted: 24/04/2012 Filed under: Asia Pacific, Christian Le Miere, Defence, South Asia | Tags: China, gunboat diplomacy, maritime disputes, Naval Cooperation 2012, naval exercises, Philippines, Russia, Scarborough Shoal, South China Sea, South China Sea dispute, US, Vietnam Leave a comment »
By Christian Le Miere, Research Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security
There surely can’t be anything aggressive about military exercises dubbed Naval Cooperation 2012, can there? And yet this month’s Sino-Russian exercises, involving a substantial fleet of Chinese vessels (five destroyers, five frigates, four Type 022 fast attack craft and two Song-class submarines), has highlighted the increasingly fractious relationships between naval powers in the region.
