China said Sunday August 29 its navy will stage live-ammunition drills in the Yellow Sea this week, after it condemned U.S.-South Korean joint naval exercises in the region and vowed to respond in kind. The Beihai Fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy will conduct exercises from Wednesday to Saturday in the sea off the southeast coast of Qingdao city, where the fleet is headquartered, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the defense ministry.
The United States and South Korea have planned additional joint maneuvers in the Yellow Sea
early next month, although no dates have been announced. Last month's drills were held in the East Sea, the waters off the Korean peninsula's east coast.
The series of joint U.S.-South Korean exercises were planned as a show of force aimed at rebuking North Korea after an international investigation found that it had torpedoed a South Korean ship in March, killing 46 sailors on board. North Korea has denied the allegation and China has not joined the international condemnation of the North.
China has recently given an unusual degree of publicity to a series of military drills and live-firing exercises along its eastern coastline seen by some as a direct response to the U.S.-South Korean exercises. (Source: Gillian Wong, AP, Aug 29, 2010).