The US and the Philippines are conducting their largest combat exercises in decades, including live-fire exercises and a boat-sinking rocket assault. More than 17,600 military personnel, including 12,200 US military personnel, 5,400 Filipino forces and 111 Australian troops, are taking part in the drills in waters across the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. The exercises come amid a strengthening US alliance in the Indo-Pacific, and moves by the Philippines to defend its territorial interests. The exercises are likely to alarm Beijing, which has recently warned against an intensifying US military deployment in the region.