China and Cambodia will open their annual Golden Dragon joint military exercises on Wednesday, marking the latest iteration of joint drills whose increasing scope and size reflect the growing security cooperation between the two nations.
In a statement, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced that Chinese military personnel participated in a ceremony at a military port in Zhanjiang, southern China prior to their deployment to Cambodia. The assembled personnel included members of the Chinese army, navy, air force, and Joint Logistic Support Force, who assembled on the flight deck of the Changbaishan, a Type 071 amphibious landing ship.
According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the state broadcaster CCTV released footage that shows “multiple heavy vehicle-mounted artillery, mortars, wheeled combat vehicles and tracked armored vehicles from the PLA Ground Force boarding the Cambodia-bound ship.” The Changbaishan has since docked at the new Ream Naval Base in southern Cambodia, the location of controversial Chinese-funded facilities that were officially opened last month.
National Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said the exercises, the seventh iteration of Golden Dragon to be held since the first in late 2016, “will focus on joint counter-terrorism and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations,” Xinhua news agency reported. He added that the exercises will involve land, aid, and maritime components, in addition to the usual cultural and sports exchanges. This year’s Golden Dragon “will facilitate practical cooperation between the two sides and contribute to the building of an all-weather China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era,” Zhang said.
The Chinese government only said that the drills would be held in “mid-to-late May,” the Royal Cambodian Air Force (RCAF) has announced that the exercise would take place from May 14 to 28. It said that 1,331 Cambodian personnel will take part in the exercises, along with 845 from China.
This is significantly fewer than last year, which saw the participation of more than 2,000 Cambodian and 760 Chinese troops, but according to the Cambodian government the upcoming iteration of Golden Dragon is set to exceed the previous iterations in terms of “scope, troop participation, and the use of advanced equipment,” the SCMP quoted RCAF spokesperson Maj. Gen. Thong Solimo as saying.
While the Chinese media reports were characteristically opaque, the RCAF General Command gave more details in a statement on May 6. This stated that in addition to the Changbaishan, three other Chinese naval vessels as well as two new-model Chinese Z-20 helicopters, 20 reconnaissance and combat drones, unmanned ground vehicles, and C5 command vehicles would take part in the drill.
The drills will also feature China’s robotic dogs, which also made an appearance during last year’s Golden Dragon exercises. As the SCMP reported, Chinese forces will “use a 15kg (33lbs) reconnaissance model of the robotic canines equipped with wide-angle sensing and autonomous navigation, as well as a 50kg variant capable of carrying a QBZ-95 rifle for urban combat scenarios.”
Just as China prepared to join the military exercise with its closest Southeast Asian partner, the United States wound up its annual Balikatan military exercise with the Philippines, its long-standing security ally. More than 10,000 U.S. troops took part in the drills, which ran from April 21 to May 9, alongside 6,000 service members from the Philippines, Australia, and Japan.
Reflecting the growing geopolitical tensions in the region, these exercises also involved an unprecedented display of firepower. The exercise involved a “full battle test,” which included live-fire missile tests and the sinking of a decommissioned World War II-era Philippine Navy vessel (although the latter sank before participants had a chance to hit it with weapons as planned). NMESIS, the U.S. Marine Corps’ highly mobile coastal anti-ship missile system, was also deployed during the drills for the first time and is now set for a prolonged stay in the Philippines.
During the closing ceremony of the exercise on Friday, Philippine military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said that the drills “witnessed exemplary demonstrations of joint capabilities ranging from live-fire operations and cyber defense to maritime security activities and humanitarian assistance efforts.”