Following tough talk from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy and Air Force are maintaining their watchdog roles by continuing dual-aircraft carrier exercises and dispatching two B-1B Lancer bombers to the region.

The pair of bombers from the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron out of South Dakota deployed to support training with allies and as part of “strategic deterrence missions to reinforce the rules-based international order in the region,” Pacific Air Forces, headquartered at Hickam Field, said today.

The B-1s conducted intercept training with Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-15Js over the Sea of Japan and then headed to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

The Air Force noted that the B-1B is capable of carrying the largest conventional (non-nuclear) payload of both guided and unguided weapons in the Air Force inventory.

U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor said Thursday, meanwhile, that the Nimitz and Ronald Reagan carrier strike groups were continuing “high-end dual-carrier exercises in the South China Sea.”

“Nimitz and Reagan Carrier Strike Groups are operating in the South China Sea, wherever international law allows, to reinforce our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, a rules-based international order, and to our allies and partners in the region,” Rear Adm. Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz group, said in a release. “Security and stability is essential to peace and prosperity for all nations, and it is for that reason the U.S. Navy has been present and ready in the Pacific for over 75 years.”

More than 120 planes and over 12,000 sailors and Marines are part of the carriers and their escort ships.

The United States and some Southeast Asian nations in particular are worried about China’s vast claims in the resource-rich region and increasing restrictions being implemented by the rising Asian power. A total of $3.37 trillion in global trade passes annually through the South China Sea.

China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei have competing claims in the region.

The Navy said earlier this month that the Nimitz and Ronald Reagan strike groups celebrated Independence Day demonstrating “unmatched sea power” in the South China Sea in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The carrier strike force “conducted several tactical exercises designed to maximize air defense capabilities, and extend the reach of long-range precision maritime strikes from carrier-based aircraft in a rapidly evolving area of operations,” the Navy said.

On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States was “strengthening” U.S. policy in the South China Sea by declaring as illegal many of China’s claims to the region.

“We are making clear: Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them,” Pompeo said.

China “has offered no coherent legal basis” for its “nine-dash line” claim to much of the South China Sea, Pompeo said.

The United States rejected the People’s Republic of China’s claims in the waters surrounding Vanguard Bank off Vietnam, Luconia Shoals off Malaysia, waters in Brunei’s exclusive economic zone and Natuna Island off of Indonesia, Pompeo stated.

China also has no maritime claim to James Shoal, a submerged “feature” only 50 nautical miles from Malaysia and some 1,000 nautical miles from China’s coast, but cited by China as part of its “southernmost territory,” he said.

The South China Sea holds an estimated 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of oil, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

More than 50 percent of the fishing vessels in the world operate in the South China Sea, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.

“The South China Sea has emerged as one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the Indo-Pacific over the last decade,” CSIS said.