Two Chinese H-6 bombers and two Russian TU-95 bombers flew over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea during Tuesday’s meeting of the Quad – formally the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, whose members are Japan, the US, India and Australia.
Two other Chinese aircraft, believed to also be H-6 bombers, replaced the two in the formation, which then flew over the Miyako Strait near Okinawa to the Pacific Ocean and back.
The planes flew farther south this time than during similar patrols in the past. The exercise ran 13 hours, according to the Russian defence ministry, compared with “more than 10 hours” for the previous one late last year.
The manoeuvre showed that military ties between China and Russia remain firm and has reinforced concerns in Washington and Tokyo about how the partnership could figure into a potential East Asian conflict, particularly around the Taiwan Strait.
On Friday, Japan’s defence ministry briefed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on details of the exercise.
“The bombers were not escorted by fighter jets,” indicating that “this was a show of force with little relation to actual combat,” the ministry said, while suggesting that it may have been intended to symbolise the evolving cooperation between China and Russia.
The ministry has disclosed long-range joint flights by Chinese and Russian forces in the vicinity of Japan four times in four years since 2019.
The interval between this exercise and the last one, in November, was shorter than the usual year or so, and the number of aircraft involved rose to six from the four of 2021.
“There’s a meaning behind the repeated military drills,” said Yoshiyuki Sugiyama, former chief of staff of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force. “They’re sending a stronger political message by going into the Sea of Japan.”
“We can infer that they haven’t confirmed high-level strategy, such as bombing targets, but they appear to be improving interoperability through these constant shows of force,” Sugiyama said.
Beijing and Moscow began conducting joint exercises under the “Peace Mission” banner in 2005 and have held regular naval drills together since 2012. Chinese forces have participated in China’s largest annual strategic exercises since 2018.
Chinese and Russian warships transited together through the Tsugaru Strait in northern Japan together for the first time last October. They went on to sail through the Osumi Strait to the south, essentially circumnavigating Japan.
While Moscow and Beijing have declined to go as far as signing a formal alliance, they share deep military ties.
Russia is the largest supplier of arms to China, which has bought weapons from it and the old Soviet Union since 1990, including fighter jets, destroyers and submarines. The two countries have an agreement to notify each other of ballistic missile and rocket launches.
The two sides call this a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era”. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in 2020 that “theoretically, it’s quite possible to imagine” a formal alliance in the future.
The closer relationship between China and Russia will have direct implications for cross-strait military engagement between China and Taiwan, deemed to be the biggest risk factor for East Asia.
“North Korea is testing ballistic missiles in alignment with China and Russia,” said Itsunori Onodera, who chairs the LDP’s national security research commission, in a party meeting Friday. “Objectively, three fronts are emerging,” Onodera said.
If a cross-strait military conflict does break out, a likely scenario would be Russia providing backing for China as a fellow authoritarian state and North Korea lining up as another like-minded nation.
In light of these developments, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida and US President Joe Biden agreed at Monday’s summit here to strengthen “deterrence and response capabilities”.
“The two leaders expressed concern about the increasing activities of Russian military forces around Japan, and committed to remain attentive to cooperation between China and Russia in military affairs,” the post-meeting joint statement reads.
Russia and China “have not reached the stage in which they are capable of conducting joint operations at the tactical level, but as China possesses arsenals of weapons originating from Russia, the two sides are well positioned to increase interoperability”, said Bonji Ohara, a senior fellow at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
“This potential arises in a situation where Russia is weakened through its invasion of Ukraine,” Ohara said.