The South China Sea will host the first-ever combined military exercise of the ASEAN group of Southeast Asian nations, its chair Indonesia announced on Thursday. These multilateral security drills come at a time when regional volatility and unpredictability are on the rise.
The drill will take place in the North Natuna Sea, the southernmost part of the South China Sea. The decision was made during a conference of military leaders of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia.
Admiral Yudo Margono, the head of the military in Indonesia, told the state-run news outlet Antara that the drill will take place in September and would not involve any instruction in combat operations. Margono stated that the aim was to strengthen “ASEAN centrality.”
ASEAN’s unity has for years been tested by a rivalry between the United States and China that is being played out in the South China Sea. ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia have competing claims with Beijing, which asserts sovereignty over vast stretches of ocean that include parts of Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Indonesian military spokesperson Julius Widjojono said the exercise was related to the “high risk of disaster in Asia, especially Southeast Asia.”
A conduit for about $3.5 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, the South China Sea has seen constant tension of late as China presses its claims with a huge deployment of coast guard and fishing boats as far as 1,500 km (932 miles) off its coastline.
China claims sovereignty via an expansive “nine-dash line” based on its historic maps, which an international arbitration court in 2016 ruled had no legal basis.
ASEAN has been pushing for a long-awaited maritime code of conduct with China to be completed and several of its members have had run-ins with Beijing in recent months.
Vietnam criticized China’s deployment of a research vessel near several gas blocs in its EEZ, while Beijing was accused of sending suspected maritime militia into waters where navies of India and ASEAN countries held an exercise.
The Philippines chided China’s coast guard for “dangerous manoeuvres” and “aggressive tactics” and plans to hold joint patrols with the United States, on top of an inaugural trilateral coast guard exercise they held with Japan this week.
China maintains its coast guard is performing regular operations in what is Chinese sovereign territory.