China and Russia step up military co-operation on Japan’s doorstep

China and Russia are deepening their military co-operation with their largest joint naval and air exercise on Japan’s doorstep.

The “Northern/Interaction-2023” exercise, which kicked off in the Sea of Japan on Monday, is technically part of the Chinese military’s regular annual training programme, a sequence of drills that rotate through its military districts. It is unclear how long the exercises will last.

But by holding the exercise in the waters that separate Japan from Russia and the Korean peninsula, Beijing and Moscow are starting to use their increasingly close military partnership to project power against other countries, officials of other governments and analysts said.