China, US hold joint sea rescue exercise

The navies of China and the United States held a search-and-rescue exercise on the South China Sea yesterday morning.

The exercise involved China's guided missile destroyer Zhanjiang, the fuel tanker Dongting Lake, the USS Juneau and the USS missile destroyer Fitzgerald.

The two navies conducted communications, fleet-formation change and search-and-rescue exercises.

The exercise called for the Chinese and US navies to jointly locate a ship in danger and salvage it. The two sides each commanded different stages of the exercise.

The Chinese side took charge of the communications and search stage, while the US side commanded the two countries' vessels in the rescue.

"In the exercises, the two navies demonstrated very good military skills and a strong co-operative spirit," said Gu Wengen, commander of the South China Sea fleet of the Navy Force of the People's Liberation Army.

"The exercise symbolizes more substantial co-operation between the armed forces of China and the United States, which is very important to the future development of bilateral military relations," said Qian Lihua, deputy director of Foreign Affairs Office of Chinese Defence Ministry.

China has also conducted search-and-rescue exercises with Britain, France, Pakistan, India, Australia and Thailand. Yesterday's exercise was the first ever held between China and the United States.

"The current search-and-rescue exercise is an important and substantial exchange activity between the two armed forces," Qian noted.

"It has been of vital importance to expanding Sino-US military co-operation despite its limited scale in terms of troops and vessels."

The event was the second phase of the first joint Sino-US search-and-rescue exercise.

The first phase, held last September, consisted of communications and passing exercises. It took place in waters off Hawaii.

Source: China Daily