In a rare moment of diplomatic friction, Taiwan has called on the Indonesian government to clarify joint naval exercises with China that took place in waters east of Taiwan.
The exercise took place on the morning of August 12, between 6:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. As part of the naval exercise, the Indonesian Navy frigate KRI I Gusti Ngurah Rai and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Honghe, a guided-missile frigate under the Eastern Theater Command, practiced maritime maneuvers. The drill included practicing formation, maritime communications, as well as replenishment-at-sea, and concluded with a divergence ceremony.
For its part, the Indonesian government has denied that the exercise was threatening in any way.
“The passing exercises are not war-fighting in nature, but rather a universal naval tradition conducted when passing through the waters of another country,” the Indonesian Navy said in a statement. It described passex activities in general – including, presumably, the one on August 12 – as “goodwill engagements that are commonly conducted by navies around the world as an expression of naval brotherhood and the maritime diplomacy associated with warships.”
Similarly, the Chinese government claimed that the exercises were in the interests of “jointly safeguarding regional peace and stability.”
