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The United States and Canada joined Japan for the biggest combat readiness war games ever staged in and around Japan, Reuters reports.
Around 57 thousand sailors, marines and airmen have been mobilized for the biennial Keen Sword exercise, which will run from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8.
The troops will participate and train in simulated air combat, amphibious landings and ballistic missile defense drills.
The U.S. and Canada are not the only western nations looking to take on a bigger security role in the region, as China’s military presence in the South China Sea grows. Britain and France are also sending more ships.
“We are here to stabilize, and preserve our capability should it be needed. Exercises like Keen Sword are exactly the kind of thing we need to do,” Rear Admiral Karl Thomas, the commander of the carrier strike group, said during a press briefing.
Eight other ships joined the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier for anti-submarine warfare drills in a show of force in waters that Washington and Tokyo fear will increasingly come under Beijing’s influence.
Based in Yokosuka near Tokyo, the Reagan is the biggest U.S. warship in Asia, with a crew of five thousand sailors and around 90 F-18 Super Hornets fighters.
A Canadian naval supply ship is also taking part in Keen Sword along with the frigate that sailed with the Reagan on Saturday.
Canadian participation is taking a bilateral drill, which began in 1986 “into the realm of multilateral exercises,” Canada’s defense attache in Japan, Captain Hugues Canuel said in Tokyo. Participation in Keen Sword, he added, reflects Canada’s desire to have a military presence in Asia.
Tokyo this year sent its biggest warship, the Kaga helicopter carrier, on a two-month tour of the Indo-Pacific, including flag-waving stops in the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Singapore.
Japan views China as a potentially much larger and more challenging adversary than Pyongyang, as its growing navy consolidates control of the South China Sea and ventures deeper into the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.
Beijing this year plans to spend 1.11 trillion yuan or $160 billion on its military, more than three times as much as Japan, and about a third of what the U.S. pays for its troops that help defend the Japanese islands.
