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The United States and Japan have just started a large-scale joint exercise, combining land, air and sea exercises to demonstrate their willingness to “fight and win”, despite China’s objections. .
The “Keen Sword” training exercise opened on October 26 and is scheduled to last until November 5. This is an event that takes place every two years, bringing together some 46,000 soldiers, including 9,000 American soldiers and dozens of warships belonging to the American carrier war group USS Ronald Reagan and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
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| Ảnh: Bahrain News |
The RT newspaper, citing the statement from the US Pacific Fleet, said the drills included multiple operations on the island of Okinawa, as well as amphibious exercises on many of Japan’s smaller islands.
These are some of the first photos of the event:
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| Photo: US Navy |
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| Sailors aboard the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga participated in the exercise. Photo: Asia Times |
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| Photo: US Navy |
The exercise comes just at a time when Tokyo and Beijing remain tense over the territorial dispute in the East China Sea. Japan’s top military commander, General Koji Yamazaki, declared the “sharp sword” in response to the “increasingly dire” security situation in the land of the rising sun.
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| Photo: US Navy |
Lieutenant General Kevin Schneider, commander of the US garrison in Japan, added that the exercise also aimed to show the “increase in strength” of the alliance of the two countries and that their armed forces “remained”. ready to fight and win “in the midst of a pandemic.
According to Schneider, both Washington and Tokyo are concerned about recent Chinese activities in the region, including the push to militarize the South China Sea …
On the contrary, China warned Japan “not to do anything that would harm peace, security and stability” and denounced the United States for inciting tensions in the region.
On October 25, the Chinese Global Times published an article accusing Japan of conspiring to push the country under siege due to a maritime territorial dispute.
The exercise showed how Tokyo and Washington “are preparing for conflicts” with Beijing, the newspaper quoted Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign University, as saying. This academic also believes that the United States “wants to use Japan as a pawn to control China in Asia-Pacific.
Tuan Anh
Joint US-Japan exercises
According to Reuters, the joint Keen Sword 2020 exercises take place in the context of China’s military activities in the growing region.
US-Japan-Australia conducts three-way exercises in the South China Sea
The US Seventh Fleet said the destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) conducted exercises with ships serving Australia and Japan in the South China Sea.
