China has staged a large-scale military exercise on its east coast, state media reported, as South Korea and the US began wrapping up their own major naval drill opposed by Beijing.
Artillery troops of the Nanjing Military Region conducted live ammunition exercises near the Yellow Sea, media reports said late on Tuesday.
The aim was to conduct battlefield intelligence and reconnaissance exercises using equipment such as unmanned drone aircraft and radar, the reports said. The military also tested a new type of rocket-fired artillery during the exercise, the reports said.
It was unclear whether the exercise had been planned or was in response to the US-South Korea drill. Nor did the reports say when the exercise took place.
China has expressed concern over the four-day US-South Korea drill, which ended yesterday. The drill was initially supposed to be held in the Yellow Sea separating China and the Korean Peninsula but was moved to the Sea of Japan following Beijing’s protests.
The US and South Korea said they staged the drills to send a “clear message” to North Korea that any future provocations would not be tolerated.
“We practiced well together and the [South’s] military has built confidence that it can deter and defeat any North Korean aggression at any time, based on its alliance with the US,” an official with Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The exercise, which ended at 5pm, was a “formidable show of force” to North Korea, he told reporters in a background briefing.
Meanwhile, the presidential office in Seoul said the National Cyber Security Center had received intelligence reports of a possible cyber attack from the North, following its vow to hit back for the exercise.
RSS