China said Sunday its navy will stage live-ammunition drills in the Yellow Sea this week, after it condemned U.S.-South Korean joint naval exercises in the region and vowed to respond in kind.
Beijing has said last month's U.S.-South Korea joint naval drills risked heightening tensions on the Korean peninsula and ignored China's objections to any foreign military exercises off its coast.
The Beihai Fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy will conduct exercises from Wednesday to Saturday in the sea off the southeast coast of Qingdao city, where the fleet is headquartered, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the defense ministry.
The drills are routine, annual training mostly involving the shooting of shipboard artillery, Xinhua said. Calls to the ministry's offices rang unanswered Sunday.
The United States and South Korea have planned additional joint maneuvers in the Yellow Sea early next month, although no dates have been announced. Last month's drills were held in the East Sea, the waters off the Korean peninsula's east coast.
The series of joint U.S.-South Korean exercises were planned as a show of force aimed at rebuking North Korea after an international investigation found that it had torpedoed a South Korean ship in March, killing 46 sailors on board. North Korea has denied the allegation and China has not joined the international condemnation of the North.
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