US Congress wants continued Chinese exclusion from naval drills

MANILA, Philippines — A US Senate-passed bill authorizing military spending on its activities reiterated China's exclusion from a major American naval exercise, just weeks after the Pentagon disinvited Beijing from the drills that could potentially chill relations between the two powers.

Last month, the Pentagon withdrew an invitation for China to participate in a multinational naval exercise the American military is hosting in a few months' time, a move the US called as an "initial response" to China's militarization of the South China Sea conflict.

The US Congress said that before China could be allowed to join future Rim of the Pacific Exercises the American Secretary of Defense should certify that China had ceased its land reclamation in the South China Sea, removed its weapons from the disputed waters and showed a four-year track record of actions stabilizing the situation in the region.

It's not clear if the said conditions under Section 1245 (b) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 were binding for the US government and would be treated as a non-binding expression of the sense of the US Congress.

Tensions between the two Pacific powers have risen in recent months following China's military activities in the resource-rich region.

In uninviting China, the Pentagon cited what it said was strong evidence of China's deployment of anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles and electronic jammers in the Spratly's, a region of South China Sea claimed by several nations.

It was also reported that China landed a bomber capable of carrying nuclear-tipped weapons on one of its outposts in the waters, which together with the missile systems puts the entire Southeast Asia within reach of China's military.

According to American lawmakers, the pace and the militarization of China of land reclamation activities in the South China sea was destabilizing the security of the US and its partners and threatening its core interests.

They added that these activities of China theatened the maritime security of the US and its allies.

"It is the sense of Congress that no country that acts adversarially should be invited to multilateral exercises and the involvement of the Government of the People's Republic of China in multilateral exercises should undergo reevaluation until such behavior changes," Section 1245 (a) of the measure said.

Aside from military tensions, the US and China, the two largest economies in the world, are currently locked in a multibillion trade dispute over market access and technology policy which could plunged the world economy into an unnecessary trade war.

These points of tension come as the two countries need to cooperate to try convince North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile program.

According to the US Department of Defense, RIMPAC exercises are the world's largest international maritime drills held every two years in Hawaii in June and July.

China has attented the last two iterations of the exercises as the former Obama administration wanted to engage China's military despite ongoing tensions.

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