New NATO: US, Japan, S Korea set to conduct massive war games

The United States, Japan and South Korea have agreed to hold new massive military exercises in the Asia-Pacific this summer, amid concerns over US attempts to militarize the region.

The defense ministers of the three countries formally agreed to hold the inaugural Freedom Edge military drills at a meeting on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore on Sunday.

The drills, which are expected to include naval, aerial, underwater and cyber exercises, are scheduled to be held sometime in the summer, but details on their exact timing or possible locations are yet to be provided.

The ministers “affirmed” their countries’ “enduring commitment to strengthen trilateral security cooperation to deter nuclear and missile threats” purportedly posed by North Korea, as well as alleged “dangerous and aggressive” Chinese “behavior” in the South China Sea.

North Korea’s leader has repeatedly said his government is building up its military arsenal in preparation for a war waged by the West that could “break out at any time” on the peninsula.

The ministers also “stressed the importance of the rules-based international order and reaffirmed their commitment to stand with Ukraine” which has been engaged in a war with Russia since February 2022, a Pentagon press release reads.

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul conducted their first-ever joint drills last October after US President Joe Biden and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts signed a trilateral security pact at Camp David in August.

Russia, China and North Korea have voiced their concerns about US attempts to militarize the Asia-Pacific through a growing spider’s web of security agreements.

However, senior Chinese military officials made clear Sunday that there are “limits” to China’s patience in the face of US “provocations” in the region, including in the South China Sea.

China warns of ‘limits’ to its restraint on US provocation in South China Sea

China warns that there are “limits” to its restraint in dealing with US provocation in the South China Sea.

“China has maintained sufficient restraint in the face of rights infringements and provocation, but there are limits to this,” Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun told attendees of the Shangri-La Dialogue.

Meanwhile, Jing Jianfeng, deputy chief of the Joint Staff department of China’s Joint Central Military Commission, noted that Washington’s security pacts with regional nations are aimed at creating “an Asia-Pacific version of NATO, to maintain American hegemony.”

This is similar to processes the US has undertaken in Eastern Europe, he added. “The US strengthens its military presence to force other countries to choose sides and advances the eastward expansion of NATO,” Jing said at the forum, warning that such actions create chaos and “bind regional countries with the American war chariot.”

Jing described the US as the “greatest challenge to regional peace and stability,” and called its Indo-Pacific Strategy a document that’s designed to “bring division, provoke confrontation and undermine stability.”

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, which overlaps with the waters of Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

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