Maritime joint military exercises may first take search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, mine-sweeping, and cracking down on drug trafficking as its main forms, and subsequently include counter terrorism/piracy , and other maritime criminal activities. It is possible that at the request of the United Nations, the Chinese Navy will attend necessary regional peace-keeping operations especially some operations of humanitarian assistance. But ASEAN scholars seem to be concerned that China and ASEAN may not be equal partners in maritime security cooperation because of their power asymmetry.