According to the spokesman of that Ministry, Wu Qian, the navies of both States carried out patrol missions as part of the annual cooperation plan between the two countries.

“These operations are not aimed at third parties and are not linked to the current international or regional situation,” he assured.

He also recalled that Russia and China conduct these exercises in correspondence with the norms of international law and in international waters.

This is a “completely different activity from that of countries that have a cold war mentality and seek bloc confrontation and hegemony,” the spokesman added.

China and Russia maintain close military cooperation and in fact, in late July the two sides held the joint North/Interaction-2023 naval exercise in the waters of the Sea of Japan.

Li Shangfu’s first trip abroad as Chinese Defense Minister was to Russia, where he also held talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu.

On the same subject, official sources confirmed that the Minister will travel again to Russia, this time to participate in the 11th Moscow International Security Conference, and will then visit Belarus for six days.

mh/arm/mgt/id