South China Sea Tensions: China Ups the Ante With Anti-Submarine Air Drills – By James Patterson (IB Times) / March 23 2020
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) deployed military aircraft to conduct an anti-submarine drill over the South China Sea, according to a report issued Friday by the PLA Navy.
The timing of the drill indicates that the moves could be a response to a four-day exercise the U.S. staged the previous week involving the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, the America Expeditionary Strike Group, and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.
It also comes at a time when China is emerging from the coronavirus pandemic that began in Wuhan and spread globally at a rapid pace. The COVID-19 has yet to reach its apex in Europe and the United States where the threat to the global economy is the focus of most governments.
The captain of one of the aircraft in the drill, named Yu Yang, explained how some of the logistics of the drill. He said, “Anti-submarine exercises are like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It’s difficult, the underwater hydrological conditions are complex. But by having two planes working together, it increases the probability of finding a submarine.”
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