Chinese and Russian troops in unprecedented war games

Nearly 9,000 Russian and Chinese troops began a mock assault on the beaches of northern China today for the final stage of unprecedented joint war games between the two former Cold War rivals.

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, tomorrow and Thursday, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported from Moscow.

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, warplanes 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, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.

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, Xinhua said.

They were joined by an anti-submarine vessel, missile destroyer, helicopters and a surveillance plane from the Russian navy, it said.

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 self-governing 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,”’ Maj. Gen. Peng Guanglian, a frequent hard-line critic of Taiwan and the US, was quoted as saying in an interview with Shanghai newspaper the Oriental Morning Post published today.

The eight-day exercises were inaugurated last week in the Russian port of Vladivostok with a planning session and will end on Thursday. 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 help 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 cooperate with China, which many Russians see as a potential threat because of its size, economic might and proximity to sparsely populated, resource-rich Siberia.

The exercises are the first major drills solely involving Russian and Chinese forces, although they have previously joined in border security exercises with other members of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, a group of six Central Asian nations dominated by China and Russia.

Defence ministers and other observers from SCO states were on hand to witness the exercises, according to an article posted on the website of the official newspaper People’s Liberation Army Daily.

Ivanov planned to hold one-on-one meetings with the other defence ministers, ITAR-Tass said, citing a Russia defence ministry official.

China’s secretive military has provided few details about the weaponry and troops involved in the exercise.

In recent years, China has steadily increased defence spending to upgrade its 2.5 million-member defence forces, long equipped with obsolete weaponry and tactics.

New purchases include high-tech Russian Su-27 and Su-30 fighter bombers, submarines and Sovremeny class destroyers equipped with deadly Sunburn anti-ship missiles.

Russian equipment being used in the drills include Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22M long-range bombers – warplanes that can carry conventional or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and are not usually part of peacekeeping operations.

The aircraft are expected to top China’s shopping list both to deter US assistance to Taiwan in the event of a conflict and project Chinese strength across the region.

Russia was China’s chief ally after the founding of the communist state in 1949, but the sides fell out in the 1950s over ideology and fought a series of border skirmishes.

Ties have strengthened following the rise of autocratic Russian leader Vladimir Putin, aided by China’s hunger for Russian oil and gas and mutual concerns over US military deployments on the countries’ borders in Central Asia.