Chinese and Russian troops storm beaches in unprecedented war games

Christopher Bodeen, Shanghai

Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov was heading to the Chinese city of Qingdao, where he planned to watch soldiers stage an amphibious landing and simulate a battle to capture a coastal area.

The live-fire exercise, dubbed Peace Mission 2005, involves about 7,000 Chinese troops and 1,800 Russians, along with state-of-the-art warships, jetss and amphibious tanks.

Operations began with a simulated naval blockade off the coast of the Shandong Peninsula in the Yellow Sea, south-east of Beijing.

Chinese state television showed ships and warplanes firing missiles and rockets while military music blared from shipboard speakers.

Chinese participants included three destroyers, three frigates and one submarine, along with naval aircraft. They were joined by an anti-submarine vessel, missile destroyer, helicopters and a surveillance plane from the Russian navy.

Top Chinese and Russian generals have sought to reassure the region that the exercises aren't directed against any third nation. Under the fictional scenario for the exercises, the forces have a UN mandate to stabilise a country plunged into violence by ethnic strife.

Yet Chinese media have also said the exercises are intended to advertise China's determination to deal with regional terrorist, extremist and separatist threats the last a likely reference to Taiwan, which China has vowed to reclaim by force if necessary.

The games "will frighten the three evil forces of "ethnic separatism, religious extremism and international terrorism," Major General Peng Guanglian, a frequent hard-line critic of Taiwan and the US, told Shanghai newspaper the Oriental Morning Post.

The eight-day exercises were inaugurated last week in the Russian port of Vladivostok with a planning session and will end tomorrow. At the weekend, paratroopers from the two militaries landed in a joint deployment.

The war games reflect strengthening ties between Russia and China over shared concerns about US dominance of world affairs. US officials have said they are watching the exercises closely and hope they will support regional stability.

Russia is also seeking to sell more arms to China, one of its leading customers, including long-range strategic bombers able to carry nuclear weapons.

Yet the exercises have sparked controversy in Russia over how closely the nation should co-operate with China, which many Russians see as a potential threat because of its size, economic might and proximity to resource-rich Siberia.