THE DAILY PLANET: Hong Kong-based warship joins South China Sea live-fire drill

The People’s Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong released footage of a live-fire drill in the South China Sea on Sunday, a day after the US navy said a strike group led by the USS Ronald Reagan had carried out operations in the area.

The footage included images of a Hong Kong-based warship, the Huizhou, firing cannons and torpedoes, and also showed military personnel carrying out anti-piracy and anti-terrorism operations.

The garrison said anti-submarine training was one of the main elements of the drill.

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The Huizhou is one of the two warships based in Hong Kong and the corvette is mainly used for coastal defensive purposes. As well as torpedoes it is also armed with surface-to-air missiles.

Beijing-based military expert Zhou Chenming said the drill was a symbolic action, mainly designed as a warning to independence-leaning forces in Taiwan as the self-ruled island edges closer towards Washington.

Zhou said that while China is not happy with the US, its priority is to rein in the island’s independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen.

“Based on the rather conventional weaponry involved in this drill, it is quite clear that China has tried hard not to provoke the US,” Zhou said, citing the absence of missile tests.

He said it was not a high-intensity drill and exercises such as firing torpedoes indicated its primary focus was defensive.

Last week China announced that it was planning live-fire drills near Taiwan, a day after Tsai had said that relations between the US and the self-ruled island were at a historical high.

Washington and Taipei have moved closer to each other in recent years amid deteriorating relations with Beijing.

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Last week also saw US Health Secretary Alex Azar visiting the island, the highest-level visit by an American official since Washington formally switched its diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.

The Chinese government views Taiwan as a breakaway province that must eventually be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Zhou also said the involvement of a Hong Kong-based ship in the drill had an added symbolic weight following the imposition of a controversial national security law in the city, but added that too much weight should not be attached to the Huizhou’s involvement in a routine drill.

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This article Hong Kong-based warship joins South China Sea live-fire drill first appeared on South China Morning Post

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8.17.2020