Japan to Alaska: What’s behind Russia-China joint military drills?

Japan has accused Russia of violating its airspace with a patrol plane. On Monday, Japanese fighter jets issued a warning to the Russian military over radio signal before firing flares at a Russian plane that had entered its airspace.

Japan’s Defence Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters: “A Russian Il-38 patrol aircraft has violated our airspace over our territorial waters north of Rebun Island, Hokkaido, on three occasions.”

He added that it was the first announced incursion of Japanese airspace by a Russian aircraft since a Tu-96 bomber entered in southern Okinawa in June 2019.

The arrival of the Russian aircraft is believed to have been part of a joint military exercise announced by Russia and China earlier this month. The two countries have been conducting joint drills for more than 20 years, but stepped them up following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the onset of the subsequent war.

These joint drills, which are increasingly taking place in new locations around the world, have alarmed the West and its allies like Japan. Several have taken place this year.

What happened near Japan? 

The incident reported by Japan on Monday happened after Russia announced on Saturday that it would conduct a military drill with China in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk in the western Pacific Ocean.

Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday that warships from Russia and China had entered the Sea of ​​Okhotsk on Tuesday.

The Sea of ​​Okhotsk lies between Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in the east, the Kuril Islands in the southeast and Japan’s island of Hokkaido to the south.

The naval exercise is named Beibu/Interaction – 2024 and it features the firing of artillery, as well as the use of anti-aircraft and anti-submarine weapons.

This is the third joint military drill in this location between the two countries. China and Russia carried out their first joint military exercise in the Sea of Okhotsk in 2017 and the second in 2022.

Japan has territorial disputes with Russia and China. China claims the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, while Japan insists the islands do not belong to any state. With Moscow, Tokyo has disputes over the Kuril Islands between Hokkaido and Kamchatka.

Russia-China military drills – a brief history

While the two countries have ramped up such exercises in recent years, joint drills date back to 2003, when a multilateral exercise took place in Kazakhstan and China.

For this, Russia and China partnered with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Similar multilateral exercises were conducted with these partner countries until the late 2010s in locations including China, Russia and the partner countries.

In 2013, China and Russia conducted a bilateral naval exercise in the Sea of Japan. In 2019, they conducted a multilateral naval exercise on the South African coast in partnership with South Africa.

Some 78 drills took place between 2003 and 2021, according to data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, DC-based think tank.

As of August 2024, CSIS had recorded 102 joint military drills. More drills have taken place since then.

Between 2022 and 2024, more than 20 drills have been held.

Some major recent Russia-China drills

• In February 2023, a Russian warship armed with Zircon missiles took part in a 10-day multilateral military drill with South Africa and China close to South Africa’s east coast. South Africa received criticism for taking part in the drill, especially because the exercise fell on the one-year anniversary of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• On July 24 this year, the United States and Canada intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bomber planes that came within 320km (about 200 miles) of the coast of Alaska. This was the first time the two countries had conducted a drill in the north Pacific. While the bombers remained within international airspace, they passed Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which according to CSIS analysis “is controlled for national security reasons, where aircraft are required to identify themselves”. It is unclear whether or not the aircraft did so.
• The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a combined US and Canada organisation that provides aerospace warning, has said Russian military jets have been spotted several times this month in ADIZ and were last seen on Monday. They were not intercepted. On Monday, a NORAD news release said, “This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat.”
• On July 15, Russian and Chinese media reported that both countries had conducted naval exercises in the South China Sea. The sea is claimed almost entirely by Beijing, but Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, dispute this and claim ownership of the waters near their coasts.
• On March 12, Chinese, Russian and Iranian navies began a multilateral drill in the Gulf of Oman. The participating countries said the purpose of the drill was to strengthen maritime security. These drills came as nearly 2,000km (1,300 miles) away, a US-led naval coalition has been countering attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea since December 2023.

Why are joint military drills between China and Russia on the rise?

Unlike the members of NATO, Russia and China are not treaty allies. The increased number of military drills has led some analysts to believe that Moscow and Beijing are trying to improve what in military terminology is known as the “interoperability” of their forces. In simple terms, that means the ability of two independent militaries to operate each other’s equipment and to fight alongside each other, seamlessly.

Analysis by CSIS of the Alaska drill concluded that the two countries were demonstrating that they can “project power” and “reach the US homeland”.

The drills come amid the intensifying Ukraine war. Moscow has warned NATO countries that if they lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles within Russian territory, it would be interpreted by the Kremlin as an act of war.

In July, after the Alaska drill, Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for China’s defence ministry, told a news conference that the drills were being conducted to strengthen mutual trust and cooperation between Russia and China.

“This action is not aimed at third parties, it is in line with relevant international laws and international practices and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation,” Zhang said.