BEIJING - China will send two warships to Cambodia and East Timor from the first half of May to mid-June, its defence ministry said, potentially further unnerving the United States over concerns about growing Chinese presence at a key Cambodian naval base.
China will send its largest naval training ship Qijiguang along with a giant amphibious warfare ship Jinggangshan to the two countries for training with local naval cadets to enhance mutual trust between their navies, the Chinese defence ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The Jinggangshan dock landing ship is capable of transporting helicopters, armoured vehicles, boats and landing craft as well as nearly 1,000 troops. Qijiguang is smaller but is China’s technologically most advanced military training vessel.
China did not say where the vessels would be based while in Cambodia and East Timor.
But the visit of the Chinese ships could further fuel US concerns about the presence of Chinese warships at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, where a recent expansion has been backed by Beijing.
Cambodia’s decision to allow China to develop Ream, located at a key waterway on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand in Sihanoukville province, has upset Washington, which worries that it will give Beijing a new outpost near the contested South China Sea, most of which is claimed by China.
Before a China-funded upgrade began in June 2022, Ream had been the site of some joint naval training and exercises between the United States and Cambodia. Cambodia demolished the US-built facility in October 2020.
Two People's Liberation Army Navy corvettes have now spent more than four months at Ream, the first and only two ships to have docked at the new pier built with Chinese funding, according to a recent report by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI).
Cambodia’s defence ministry insisted on Wednesday that their presence does not constitute a permanent deployment of the Chinese military in the country.
China has been boosting its “ironclad” friendship with the Southeast Asian country, amid high-level state and military leader exchanges since last year.
Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun in March met with the commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, Mao Sophan, in Beijing, with both pledging further military cooperation.