The US Navy and Marine Corps proposed to hold anti-submarine training and practice unit and mixed unit tactics with allies such as Japan while using real bullets and bombs, Stars and Stripes reported.
“The Navy is evolving, and we have new weapons platforms coming onboard,” John Van Name, a senior environmental planner for the US Pacific Fleet, said.
He added that anti-submarine exercises around the Mariana Islands aim to combat new types of ultra-quiet subs used by China and others.
The expansion of US military maneuvers is from 497,469-square-mile Mariana Islands Range Complex to a larger 984,601-square-mile study area, pushing operations much farther west toward the Philippines and Okinawa.
The air-to-ground bombing exercises could also double from 1,300 to 2,520 annually and gunnery exercises between ships could increase from 17 to 240 per year.
This is while the Chinese government has repeatedly voiced concern over Washington’s plans for boosting its military strength in Asia.
China says American militarism in the region could endanger peace. It also urged the US to abstain from flexing its muscles.
In August, the Foreign Policy magazine reported that the United States is encircling China with a chain of small air bases and military ports.
The US Air Force planned to lease 33 acres of land on the small Pacific island of Saipan for the next 50 years to build a "divert airfield" on an old World War II airbase there.
The Air Force specifically wants to expand the existing Saipan International Airport to carry out "periodic divert landings, joint military exercises, and joint and combined humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts," according to the documents.
Beijing is considering the Pentagon’s focus to “pivot” increased US military presence in the Asia-Pacific as a strategy to counter China’s increasing global influence.
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