Indian Navy carries out joint wargames with Australia, Indonesia navies

New Delhi: Indian Navy's indigenously built warship INS Sahyadri, participated in the maiden trilateral maritime partnership exercise with ships and aircraft from the Royal Australian Navy and Indonesian Navy in the Indo-Pacific region from September 20-21, the Defence Ministry said on Friday.

Complex tactical and manoeuvring exercises, cross-deck visits and cross-deck landings of integral helicopters were conducted for training of crew and enhancement of interoperability between the three countries.

The trilateral exercise provided an opportunity for the three maritime nations to strengthen their partnership and improve their collective capability to support a stable, peaceful and secure Indo-Pacific region, the Defence Ministry explained.

The exercise also provided the opportunity for the participating navies to benefit from each other's experience and expertise.

INS Sahyadri deployed on the Indo-Pacific mission, is the third ship of the indigenously designed and built Project-17 class multirole stealth frigates built at Mazagon Dock Ltd, Mumbai.

The exercise assumes importance in the wake of China's muscle flexing in the Indo-Pacific Ocean region.

The Chinese Communist Party is using military and economic coercion to bully its neighbours, advance unlawful maritime claims and threaten maritime shipping lanes in the region.

As China's overseas economic and security interests expand under its One Belt One Road initiative (BRI) it seeks to expand its overseas military footprint to protect those interests.

China is seeking to establish global logistics and basing infrastructure to allow the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to project and sustain military power at greater distances.

It abuses commercial arrangements at host country ports to support military functions and hides the true purpose of its installations overseas, according to US Defence report.

The Indian Navy exercise also comes just ahead of the Indo-Pacific Quad summit that will be hosted by India this year to be attended by the US, Australia and Japan.

China's coercive posturing is likely to come up for discussion at the summit.