The US and Indian navies conducted joint military operations in the Bay of Bengal on Monday as rivalry between the United States and China continues to intensify in the region.
The U.S. Navy said Tuesday it would conduct other military exercises this week with the participation of allies from Japan and Australia.
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Cooperative exercises with India involved the Nimitz carrier strike group, which consists of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton, and two guided-missile destroyers USS Sterett and USS Ralph Johnson.
On the Indian side, the destroyer INS Rana, two stealth frigates named INS Sahyadri and INS Shivalik, and the missile corvette INS Kamorta participated in the exercises.
The nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz sails for the port of Chennai on July 1, 2007. The USS Nimitz is one of the largest battleships in the world. (file image)
(AFP via Getty)
The United States Navy described the exercises as “high-end exercises designed to maximize training and interoperability, including air defense,” adding that the operations are designed to “provide security throughout the region.”
“It was a privilege to operate with the Indian Navy,” Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, commander of the carrier strike group, said in a statement.
The joint exercises follow a tense time a few days after the United States said that China’s claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea were illegal.
The United States has voiced its opinion on China’s expansive territorial claims and often dispatches warships via the strategic waterway. China claims that the United States’ rejection of its territorial claims has undermined stability in the area.
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Monday’s military exercises also occur as tensions between China and the United States mount.
China has faced a global backlash, led largely by the United States, to downplay and not contain the coronavirus, which originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019. China has rejected the allegations and, in turn, has accused to the United States. of using the global pandemic to play politics.
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Tensions between China and India are also high after a deadly confrontation in disputed territory in the Ladakh region, which left 20 Indian soldiers dead and dozens wounded. The two sides had clashed for several weeks along the remote stretch of the 2,100-mile Current Control Line, the border established between the two countries after a war in 1962.
