The four-day joint exercise in the western Pacific involves three flattops -- USS Ronald Reagan, USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt -- and seven South Korean warships including three destroyers, Seoul's defence ministry said. Nuclear-armed North Korea regularly denounces such military drills as rehearsals for invasion and sometimes conducts its own military manoeuvres or missile tests in response. The exercises come on the heels of Trump's visits to Seoul and Beijing this week, which were dominated by the question of how to counter Pyongyang's nuclear weapons threat. The US administration thinks China's economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes. Though China has backed UN sanctions, US officials want Chinese authorities to clamp down on unauthorised trade along the North Korean border.

Source: The Nation Bangkok November 11, 2017 06:00 UTC