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French and German air forces’ Pacific missions ‘highlight Nato concerns over China’
- Warplanes from the two countries will take part in joint exercises in Australia
- One analyst says Germany’s deployment in the region is ‘unnecessary’ but shows how its strategic thinking is changing
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Germany and France’s recent military deployments in the Indo-Pacific highlight Nato’s growing concern about China, according to a military analyst.
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The German Air Force has sent 13 military aircraft to the region for the first time to take part in the multinational Pitch Black exercises in Australia and last year sent a warship to the South China Sea for the first time in 20 years.
“We want to demonstrate that we can be in Asia within a day,” Lt Gen Ingo Gerhartz, the air force’s chief of staff, said after the force of fighters, multi-role jets and transport planes left Germany.
The aircraft will also take part in exercises with their Australian and Singaporean counterparts, with smaller air fleets visiting Japan and South Korea.
Sun Keqin, a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said Germany had made a shift in its security policy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February “broke some restrictions”.
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He said the deployment comes against the backdrop of Nato declaring that China was a systemic “challenge” – the first time the alliance had mentioned the country in its mission statement.
“The Indo-Pacific is the focus of the US and it shows Germany is coordinating with the US, which is a rival of China’s,” Sun said,
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