TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On Thursday, May 9, the U.S. Navy announced that it just completed a series of joint freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea along with naval vessels from India, Japan and the Philippines.
According to the Navy’s statement the guided missile destroyer, USS William P. Lawrence, led five other vessels on a week-long joint patrol through the South China Sea, May 2 to May 8.
The Navy said that the vessels gathered to “train together and promote maritime cooperation throughout a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The international fleet included the carrier JS Izumo and destroyer JS Murasame, from Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, the destroyer INS Kolkata and support vessel INS Shakti, from the Indian Navy, and from the Philippines, the BRP Andres Bonifacio naval patrol ship.
The week’s exercises included a number of cooperative drills and a leadership exchange meeting aboard the Japanese helicopter Carrier, the JS Izumo.
The quadrilateral exercises are a result of a call by Washington, made in December, for regional allies to boost their military preparedness and interoperability, as China continues to threaten the region with vast territorial claims and militarization of features throughout the South China Sea, reports Stars and Stripes.
Just earlier this week on May 6, the Navy reported that two U.S. destroyers, the USS Preble and the USS Chung Hoon, conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the region near a feature occupied by Chinese forces.
