China hosts foreign naval officials amid South China Sea tensions

QINGDAO — The Chinese Navy on April 21 kicked off a biennial meeting of top foreign naval officials in the port city of Qingdao, in a show of military diplomacy that will be closely watched for signs of more engagement between China and the United States.

The four-day event with delegations from 30 countries comes during heightened tensions in the South China Sea, as US treaty ally Manila is in an increasingly fraught standoff with Beijing over the strategic waterway, which could be a potential flashpoint for US-China relations.

Participants will hold closed-door talks on April 22, with seminars on topics such as addressing maritime security challenges. They will also discuss the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, a set of guidelines formulated a decade ago, meant to de-escalate tensions between militaries at sea. It has not since been updated to cover drone warfare.

A January preliminary meeting discussed the creation of a working group to prevent drone collisions at sea, state media reported.

The event overlaps with annual US-Philippines large-scale joint military drills beginning on Monday, which will occur outside Philippine territorial waters for the first time.

Tensions are particularly high around the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, where Manila has accused Beijing of "harassment", including the use of water cannons against Philippine vessels.

The United States, Japan and the Philippines signed a co-operation agreement at a trilateral summit last week, where leaders expressed concerns over China's "dangerous and aggressive behaviour" in the South China Sea, which Beijing slammed as "bloc politics".

"The US-Philippines joint drills this time cover a bigger region, involve more troops and include