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TOKYO -- The rumble over the western Pacific this week was neither a new typhoon nor a wayward North Korean rocket. It was Japan and the U.S. putting on a show of air and naval power.
Reporters were on hand Wednesday and Thursday as the nuclear-powered USS George Washington, carrying F/A-18 combat jets, joined the Japanese destroyer Hyuga and more than a dozen other warships for some scheduled sparring.
The exercises began Nov. 16, before the Chinese government declared a new air defense zone over the East China Sea. Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, commander of the U.S.'s 7th Fleet, stressed that they were not meant to provoke. But their location -- some 280km southeast of the Okinawan mainland -- was close to where China's navy trained last month.
The allies divided into two teams, one playing the role of the enemy, and rehearsed air, sea and submarine combat. They practiced every scenario apart from ballistic missile defense, Thomas told reporters.
China's military buildup is a preoccupation of the crew of the George Washington, whose purview spans the waters from Hawaii to India, and the rest of America's forces in the region. Thomas hewed to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's line that the U.S. would not bend its stance to the new Chinese air defense zone.
"We are going to continue with our operations in international airspace as we always have," the vice admiral said.
Mark Montgomery, commander of Carrier Strike Group 5, declined to comment on why the U.S. sent two unarmed B-52 bombers through the zone earlier in the week without informing the Chinese. But he did insist that it had followed international law. Washington gave Tokyo advance notice of the move, a Japanese government source said Thursday.
"We have always trained in these waters," Yasushi Matsushita, commander in chief of Japan's Self-Defense Fleet, told reporters.
"There is no need to pull back just because China has come out," Matsushita said.
Separately, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference Thursday that Self-Defense Forces planes continue to patrol areas within the air defense zone without reporting their activities to China.
Reporters were on hand Wednesday and Thursday as the nuclear-powered USS George Washington, carrying F/A-18 combat jets, joined the Japanese destroyer Hyuga and more than a dozen other warships for some scheduled sparring.
The exercises began Nov. 16, before the Chinese government declared a new air defense zone over the East China Sea. Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, commander of the U.S.'s 7th Fleet, stressed that they were not meant to provoke. But their location -- some 280km southeast of the Okinawan mainland -- was close to where China's navy trained last month.
The allies divided into two teams, one playing the role of the enemy, and rehearsed air, sea and submarine combat. They practiced every scenario apart from ballistic missile defense, Thomas told reporters.
China's military buildup is a preoccupation of the crew of the George Washington, whose purview spans the waters from Hawaii to India, and the rest of America's forces in the region. Thomas hewed to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's line that the U.S. would not bend its stance to the new Chinese air defense zone.
"We are going to continue with our operations in international airspace as we always have," the vice admiral said.
Mark Montgomery, commander of Carrier Strike Group 5, declined to comment on why the U.S. sent two unarmed B-52 bombers through the zone earlier in the week without informing the Chinese. But he did insist that it had followed international law. Washington gave Tokyo advance notice of the move, a Japanese government source said Thursday.
"We have always trained in these waters," Yasushi Matsushita, commander in chief of Japan's Self-Defense Fleet, told reporters.
"There is no need to pull back just because China has come out," Matsushita said.
Separately, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference Thursday that Self-Defense Forces planes continue to patrol areas within the air defense zone without reporting their activities to China.
