Australian warships join US and Japan navies in military drills amid tensions with China
Five Australian warships have joined US and Japanese vessels in joint military exercises in the Philippine Sea, amid regional tensions with China.
The Royal Australian Navy deployment comes as the US warns it will hold more patrols - known as Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) - to challenge Beijing's territorial claims in the nearby South China Sea.
An Australian Joint Task Group, led by HMAS Canberra, has joined the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group and a Japanese destroyer for a three navy exercise in the Philippine Sea.
READ MORE: Australia and tensions in the South China Sea
Royal Australian Navy warships have joined US and Japanese vessels in military exercises. (Department of Defence). Supplied
Commodore Michael Harris, commander of the Australian Joint Task Group, said the drills alongside Japan and the US was invaluable.
"Maintaining security and safety at sea requires navies to be able to cooperate seamlessly," Commodore Harris said.
Over the next two days the three navies will conduct training exercises as they work to keep the Indo-Pacific region "free and open".
The Joint Task Group left Darwin on July 5 for a regional deployment to Southeast Asia before it heads to Hawaii for the Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC).
The military drills come as US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said American warships will beef up FONOPS through the South China Sea this year.
China, along with the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia, hold different, sometimes overlapping, territorial claims over the strategic waterway.
China has built artificial reefs across the South China Sea as part of its territorial claims. The US Navy has said it will continue with Freedom of Navigation patrols through the waterway. AP
Mr Esper told an online event hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington that China's "excessive and unlawful maritime claims … have been used to bully smaller countries".
In 2019, the US Navy carried out nine FONOPS - the most ever - and Mr Esper said the Pentagon will "keep up the pace" through this year.
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