China conducts live-fire drills off the Gulf of Tonkin

China is conducting live-fire military exercises off the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin, near Vietnamese waters.

The US news agency Bloomberg reported that the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, in a statement posted on its website on July 27, said that China is conducting live-fire drills off the coast of the Gulf of Tonkin, near Vietnamese waters.

The exercise, along with drills in the Bohai Strait, will end on August 1. Meanwhile, China will begin five days of live-fire exercises in the East China Sea tomorrow.

China conducts military exercises in the East Sea. Photo: THX

China's Defense Ministry calls these regular drills while their scale is much larger than previous similar activities.

According to analysts, China's large-scale military exercises across the East Sea and East China Sea have seriously affected the domestic aviation industry and increased tensions in the region as the country has a series of territorial disputes at sea with Japan (in the East China Sea) and with Southeast Asian countries (in the East Sea).

“The current exercises are different from the past because they are larger in scale, and it seems China is trying to increase military tensions,” said Suh Jin Young, a professor of Chinese politics at Korea University.

Previously, the Ming Pao (Hong Kong) newspaper reported that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) had begun a series of large-scale exercises in all seven military regions, including the Nanjing military region - located on the east coast of the country and opposite Japan.

Accordingly, commercial airlines flying over the East China Sea have been forced to cancel or delay many flights.

Several airlines have reported major disruptions on routes in and around the Nanjing Military Region since July 19, including Shanghai and the eastern coastal provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi.

According to Vietnam.net