China: PLA to conduct four concentrated military drills across three major Chinese sea regions

Pressing the island of Taiwan from both the north and south ends, the simultaneous exercises in the South China Sea, the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea will demonstrate the PLA's high level of combat preparedness, Chinese mainland military experts told Global Times on Sunday.

The drills are expected to hone in on the PLA troops' cross-regional joint combat capability, because if military conflicts break out, they will not likely be restricted to one sea region, but interconnected, they told the newspaper.

According to a navigation restriction notice released by the local maritime safety administration in Guangzhou on Sunday, the PLA will hold military exercises in the waters of the South China Sea, off the southeast coast of South China's Guangdong Province, from Monday to Saturday, reported the newspaper.

Also in the South China Sea, military drills will be held in waters off Hainan Island's southeast coast, also from Monday to Saturday, the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration announce don Friday as quoted by the newspaper.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday that the drills are likely to feature anti-ship, air defense and anti-submarine exercises.

China has been pursuing an aggressive stance in the past couple of months in the South China Sea region.

The country has also earned criticisms from various corners for being the country from where the COVID-19 outbreak occurred.

The South China Sea Dispute:

The South China Sea dispute, according to Council on Foreign Relations (CFR),  originates from China’s sweeping claims of sovereignty over the sea and its estimated 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Competing claimants Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam are riled by China's high-handedness.

The South China Sea disputes involve both island and maritime claims among these sovereign states.

An estimated US$3.37 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually, which accounts for a third of the global maritime trade

According to CFR, in recent years, satellite imagery has shown China’s increased efforts to reclaim land in the South China Sea by physically increasing the size of islands or creating new islands altogether.

In addition to piling sand onto existing reefs, China has constructed ports, military installations, and airstrips—particularly in the Paracel and Spratly Islands, where it has twenty and seven outposts, respectively.

China has militarized Woody Island by deploying fighter jets, cruise missiles, and a radar system, said the CFR website quoting various sources.