China, Saudi Arabia to hold joint naval drill in October

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, shakes hands with Chinese tanker soldiers with the People’s Liberation Army at Shenyang training base, China, March 24, 2007. [US DoD / Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen]

China and Saudi Arabia will conduct a joint naval military drill in October, the Chinese Defence Ministry announced on Thursday, Anadolu Agency reports.

The military exercise, called “Blue Sword 2023”, will be held in Zhanjiang city of South China’s Guangdong province, a Ministry spokesman told a press briefing, Global Times reported.

Both nations had previously conducted collaborative naval exercises in 2019, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.

China facilitated an agreement this year in which historical adversaries in the region, Saudi Arabia and Iran, agreed to mend relations and re-open their diplomatic missions.

READ: China looks set to derail Western hegemony

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.