Chinese and US navies play games and party despite tensions

US and Chinese sailors faced off on Chinese soil today, in sporting clashes between their navies aimed at building trust despite rising tensions over Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The contests -- the hosts claimed a 3-1 victory at football, and the visitors dominated on the basketball court -- were followed by a party on board the USS Blue Ridge, the flagship of the US Navy's 7th Fleet as it paid a rare visit to the base of China's South Sea Fleet.
The fleet's frigates are charged with defending Beijing's claim to almost all the South China Sea, against several Southeast Asian neighbours including allies of Washington -- but the scene at the People's Liberation Army vessels in Zhanjiang was all smiles.

US 7th fleet commander Robert Thomas clinked glasses with his South China Sea fleet counterpart Shen Jinlong.
"I remembered I owed him a beer," Thomas said, before toasting a Chinese rear-admiral and cutting a cake decorated with the flags of both countries.
Chinese officers toured the hulking command ship, docked in the southern province of Guangdong, and eyed up their US counterparts over a lunch of tomato bisque and chicken paninis.

On the Blue Ridge's main deck, US personnel patrolled with M-16 rifles a stones' throw from the palm-fringed Chinese shore, while on land staff from both navies swapped jokes and rebounds.

The Chinese and US militaries -- the world's largest and most powerful respectively -- have been increasing exchanges even as Beijing's assertion of its South China Sea claims, most recently through rapid building of artificial islands, raises alarm bells in Washington.
Those concerns -- and the M-16s -- were shunted aside in public this evening, as uniformed staff from both navies danced while a military band shook the Blue Ridge with covers of Daft Punk and hip-hop legends the Beastie Boys.
"We share the domain, we operate together," the 7th fleet's Ron Oswald told AFP when asked about South China Sea tensions.