S. KOREA PARTICIPATES IN RIMPAC

[Anchor Lead]

The Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the world's largest military exercise, is underway in Hawaii, USA. The goal is to ward off China and Russia. The South Korean Navy has deployed the most troops thus far to expand its role.

[Pkg]

Pearl Harbor in Hawaii is packed with some 40 warships from 26 countries. South Korea's largest naval ship, Marado, is docked side by side with American aircraft carriers. It's the vessel's first participation in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the world's largest maritime military drill held biennially. The South Korean Navy also deployed the Aegis destroyers King Sejong the Great and Munmu the Great as well as the submarine Shin Dol-seok along with over a thousand troops. It's the most number of soldiers to be deployed by South Korea for the RIMPAC exercise thus far and the second in scale after the U.S. The post of the South Korean naval training chief has been elevated to general level officials. For the first time the chief is tasked with overseeing 13 ships from eight countries and more than a thousand troops from nine nations.

[Soundbite] An Sang-min(Rear Admiral, RIMPAC Training Team Chief) : "This shows that the S. Korean Navy has a higher status now and S. Korea plays a more important role in global security."

Beside the U.S. and QUAD nations such as Japan, India and Australia, several Southeast Asian countries are also participating in this year's exercise. China and Russia were not invited by the U.S. Beijing has been excluded from the exercise since 2018 over its trade row with Washington. Russia has been ousted since 2014 for annexing Crimea. After finishing the exercise, the South Korean Navy will hold a ballistic missile detection and tracking drill jointly with the U.S. and Japan to bolster response against North Korean missile provocations.