⁍ US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that Washington is counting on Asian partners to help rein in an increasingly aggressive China.

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⁍ Two of the US Navy’s most powerful warships conducted drills with allies in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

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⁍ Esper accused Beijing of bullying nations around the Pacific, depriving countries with claims in the South China Sea of fishing rights and trillions of dollars of oil and gas revenue.

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– “Make no mistake, the [Chinese Communist Party] has been engaged in this sort of behavior for many years,” US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday. “But today, its true intentions are on full display for all to see.” Esper also accused China of “brazen disregard of international commitments,” as the US Navy’s USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group were joined by Australian and Japanese warships for joint exercises in the Philippine Sea, the Guardian reports. “It’s important to keep Beijing from achieving its goal of overturning the rules-based international order in the pernicious manner in which they’re trying to do it,” Adm. Philip Davidson, the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii, told the Defense Writers Group in Washington, per the Guardian. Davidson also said it was “important to keep Beijing from achieving its goal of overturning the rules-based international order in the pernicious manner in which they’re trying to do it.” In the Indian Ocean, the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group teamed up with four Indian warships to practice communications and air defense drills. “I want to highlight our increased defense cooperation with India, one of the all-important defense relationships of the 21st century,” Esper said.