Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) frigate HMNZS TE MANA will spend the next month undertaking activities in support of defence diplomacy, in South East and North East Asia.
Having successfully participated in Exercise BERSAMA SHIELD, a Five Power Defence Arrangements exercise also involving Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, HMNZS TE MANA is now visiting ports in Vietnam, China, Republic of Korea, Japan and Guam, before returning to New Zealand in June. The port visits are part of a long-standing programme of defence diplomacy in the region.
As part of this programme, TE MANA was alongside in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, for Anzac Day, where the ship’s company attended a dawn service.
In the waters around Guam TE MANA will take part in activities with the US Navy and will dock at the US Navy facility there. The ship’s docking there flows from the announcement by the former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta during his visit to New Zealand in September 2012 authorising RNZN ships to visit US Navy facilities subject to a case-by-case waiver.
[mappress] Press Release, May 14, 2013