Saudi Arabia and China to Conduct Joint Exercise in the Gulf
The official China Military Online website has announced that the Chinese PLA Navy and the Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF) are to conduct a joint training exercise in the second half of October. The exercise, entitled Blue Sword 2025, will be the third joint naval exercise that the two countries have conducted together.
The last exercise in the series was carried out over two weeks in the same period in 2023. It was conducted in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province, and focused on naval infantry and special forces operations. Saudi forces for the exercise would have been drawn from the two naval infantry brigades the RSNF maintains, each with a special forces element, one subordinate to the Eastern Fleet in the Gulf, and the other under the Western Fleet in the Red Sea. The PLA Navy troops came from the PLA Marine Corps. The exercise in 2023 culminated in a maritime assault and rescue of a hijacked merchant ship.
The first Blue Sword exercise was held in 2019 and was specifically a naval special forces exercise. The exercise was sponsored by the RSNF Western Fleet, based in Jeddah.
This year’s exercise is to be based on the King Abdulaziz Naval Base in Jubail, which is home to the Eastern Fleet’s naval infantry brigade. Observers will be watching closely to determine if the scope of the training is extended from the naval special forces domain, the focus hitherto, into joint operations at sea.
If there is a sea phase to the training, it could exploit the PLA Navy and Marine Corps permanent presence at the PLA’s Project 141 Overseas Support Base at Doraleh, in Djibouti. The presence is maintained by a three-ship flotilla on a six-month rotation, with ships provided by the PLA’s North Sea, East Sea, and Southern Sea Fleets in rotation. The current 47th Naval Escort Group is coming towards the end of its rotation and consists of Type 052D guided-missile destroyer Baotou (F113), Type 054A guided-missile frigate Honghe (F523), and the Type 903A replenishment ship Gaoyouhu (K904).
Type 054A guided-missile frigate Daqing (F576) sets off from Qingdao, with a Harbin Z-9 helicopter on the flight deck (from Chinese PLA video)
Usually, the overlap of an incoming and an outgoing flotilla presents an opportunity for the PLA Navy to mount joint exercises with allies in the Indian Ocean region, often with Iran and Pakistan. Notwithstanding understandings achieved with the Chinese over the transfer of Diego Garcia to Mauritius, neither the old nor new flotillas are expected to exercise with the UK HMS Prince of Wales carrier strike group currently exercising in the Indian Ocean, although their paths could cross.
The incoming flotilla, the 48th Naval Escort Group, set off on October 11 (video) from Qingdao, in China's Shandong Province, and home of the North Sea Fleet. The new flotilla consists of Type 052DL guided-missile destroyer Tangshan (F122), Type 054A guided-missile frigate Daqing (F576), and Type 903A replenishment ship Taihu (K889), recognizable due to its striking similarity to the French Durance class. Tangshan is a new variant of the Type 052D frigate, with a flight deck extended by four meters. Both ships had a single Harbin Z-9C helicopter (based on the Eurocopter AS.565 Panther) on the flight deck as they left the harbor.