Keen Sword Cat and Mouse

Reuters is reporting that Russian Navy surveillance aircraft snooped in on the ships participating in the combined US-Japan naval exercise.

Roman Martov, a spokesman for Russia's Pacific Ocean Fleet, was quoted by the agency as saying: "They carried out their planned flights in the region of regular activity of (Russia's) fleet.

"There were no violations of international rules of the use of airspace or flight rules on the Russian side."

Given the proximity to some of the waters where the exercises are being conducted, namely ~500 nautical miles from Shanghai, I think it would be the height of hypocrisy for China to believe the US is a great threat to China and not have submarines watching an exercise that includes 60 warships.

In other words, I suspect there are more PLA Navy submarines spying on this naval exercise than Russian Navy surveillance aircraft.