"A dis-invitation to China could signal to other participants that they were being expected to take sides, and that might make them think twice." "Almost all exercises in the Asia-Pacific - and especially large ones involving the major powers, of which RIMPAC is the leading example - are becoming more important," Ayson said. Withdrawing China’s invitation would have created other problems, said Rob Ayson, professor of strategic studies at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. "We've now got two years of empirical evidence to determine if PRC behavior has improved. It hasn't." "Inviting the PRC (People’s Republic of China) to RIMPAC 2014 was equally contentious … but the idea was that this would improve Chinese behavior," Newsham said. Inviting China to RIMPAC 2016 sends the wrong message, said Grant Newsham, senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, in Tokyo. Japan is engaged in a tense territorial dispute with China over the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, and has accused Chinese warships of improperly sailing into or near Japanese territorial waters twice in recent months. Japan will send one of its newest and largest warships to RIMPAC, and a vice admiral in Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force will be one of the exercise’s senior commanders. The ruling could come during the RIMPAC exercise, and China already has promised to ignore it. Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also will be at RIMPAC 2016, and each has overlapping claims with China in the South China Sea. An international tribunal is expected to rule soon on a legal challenge brought by the Philippines against China’s claims in the sea. Stennis, center, and Ronald Reagan steaming together in the Philippine Sea in a massive show of force two weeks after Stennis left the South China Sea. The Nimitz-class aircraft carriers John C. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jake Greenberg/Released) Navy’s continued presence throughout the area of responsibility.
7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific. Stennis (CVN 74), center, and USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) conduct dual aircraft carrier strike group operations in the U.S. 160618-N-DA693-358PHILIPPINE SEA (June 18, 2016) The Nimitz-class aircraft carriers USS John C.
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