100 Chinese Troops to Train on Hawaii’s Big Island

This is a bit surprising to see considering how China was disinvited to the last RIMPAC exercise. However, this is a disaster relief exercise which the U.S. military is signaling should be something everyone is involved in:

 An opening ceremony will be held Monday on Hawaii island for a military exercise with China that will involve about 100 People’s Liberation Army soldiers training alongside U.S. Army counterparts.

That comes after Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, spoke on Veterans Day at Punchbowl cemetery about the “rules-based international order” that followed U.S. victory in the Pacific in World War II, and China’s attempts to usurp it.

Those American standards “are even more important today,” Davidson said, “as malicious actors like the Communist Party of China seek to redefine the international order through corruption, malign cyber activities, intellectual property theft, restriction of individual liberties, military coercion and the direct attempts to override other nations’ sovereignty.”

China was invited into the prestigious Rim of the Pacific maritime exercises in Hawaii in 2014 and 2016 — the drills are held every two years — but it wasn’t allowed to participate in 2018.

China sent a spy ship to monitor the event anyway in 2018. The rising Asian power is not likely to take part in the summer 2020 RIMPAC, either.

“China has not been involved in the planning process,” which is nearing its midpoint, said Cmdr. John Fage, a spokesman for the Navy’s 3rd Fleet in San Diego, which plans the exercise.

In recent years, the U.S. government has been more strident than ever in condemning China as a revisionist power and has taken steps to interdict Chinese espionage and influence. A bitter trade war has added to the tension.

So it makes the dwindling military-to-military exercises such as the “disaster management exchange” planned through Nov. 26 on the Big Island stand out that much more as the exception to the growing rule.

U.S. Army Pacific said the exchange with the People’s Liberation Army is part of its “Pacific Resilience” program, a series of exercises that ensures the U.S. “is prepared to assist our global partners in the event of a major disaster.”

Stars & Stripes

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