Sri Lanka Navy is taking part in Pakistan's AMAN-17 multinational naval exercise kicked off on February 10 in the North Arabian Sea in Karachi. The multinational naval exercise is held from February 10 to 14 with the participation of 37 countries. Nine nations including Australia, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and Russia are participating with warships or aircraft.

 The Philippine navy will soon return to a South China Sea island it lost to Vietnam 40 years ago to drink beer and play volleyball with Vietnamese sailors, symbolising how once-suspicious neighbours are cooperating in the face of China's assertiveness in disputed waters.

A hot topic these days in D.C. is the quest for what is quickly becoming the foreign policy holy grail — a U.S. foreign policy strategy towards the People’s Republic of China. The quest in many respects makes sense. After the declaration of a “pivot” to Asia, many in America’s foreign policy community expected a major push by the Obama Administration to clearly define some sort of strategy towards Beijing incorporating a number of broad areas of importance — defense, economic, and cultural interactions.

The Philippines and Japan’s charm offensives towards China appear to have failed as Beijing seeks to isolate both powers within the region. In recent weeks both the Philippines and Japan have made a number of overtures to China aimed at mending strained bilateral ties. Just this week, for instance, the chief of staff of the Philippine military, Emmanuel Bautista, pledged that his country would continue its no-confrontation doctrine in the South China Sea, while also saying that it would consider allowing Chinese naval ships to use the Subic port.

The Chinese military clearly recognized that the U.S. was able to gain substantial goodwill from its effective response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami with its aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships ferrying supplies, medical teams and rescue crews ashore, according to Chinese and Western commentators.

What this rescue shows us, however, is that national and international ends are not necessarily in conflict. This operation has helped the United States Navy develop genuine, if hard to measure, “soft power” value in terms of U.S. relations with Iran and the Gulf

Dozens of doctors and nurses fanned out from a Chinese navy hospital ship to treat poor Jamaicans as part of a global humanitarian mission to portray China’s rapidly growing military as a responsible power. The aim of the operation...is to soften the image of China’s 2.3 million-member military and boost its ties with other nations’ armed forces.

A Chinese navy hospital ship called the Peace Ark sailed on Friday into Havana Bay in Cuba, reflecting good relations between the communist allies and China's expanding global presence.