China, Russia To Hold Joint Military Exercises

[Ryan Ruck]

China, Russia To Hold Joint Military Exercises Next Month (08/05)

BEIJING: China and Russia are to hold rare joint military exercises involving up to 8,000 service personnel from Aug 18-26, the Global Times reported, citing Russian media reports.

'Peace Mission 2005' will involve China's army, navy and air force, while Russia will dispatch its navy and air force, it said.

China's Defense Ministry has not announced the exercises. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said last Thursday during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao that joint exercises will take place later this year.

According to the Global Times, which is run by the official People's Daily, final arrangements for the exercises were agreed on July 1, when Major General Qian Lihua of China's Defense Ministry visited Moscow.

The paper said the joint maneuvers will begin Aug 18-19, when the two sides hold military and political consultations at chief of staff level near Russia's Pacific Fleet headquarters at Vladivostok.

From Aug 20-22 the exercises will move to the Yellow Sea and the area off the Jiaodong peninsula in eastern China's Shandong province, it said.

These exercises will involve China's army, air force and navy, and Russian paratroopers who will jump on to the peninsula, while Russian ships engage in amphibious landing exercises, it said.

Air force exercises involving Sukhoi Su-27 fighter planes and Tupolev TU 95MSs and TU 22M-3s will round off the drills on Aug 23-26, with long-distance bombing runs and cruise missile attacks, it said.

The exercises could also involve China's nuclear submarine fleet and anti-submarine warfare, the Global Times said.

[Ryan Ruck]

Russia, China Ships Can Operate In Single Combat Formation

MARSHAL SHAPOSHNIKOV WARSHIP, Yellow Sea, August 14 (Itar-Tass) - Commander of the Primorye flotilla of surface warships of the Pacific Fleet, Rear Admiral Viktor Chirkov is satisfied with the level of cooperation between groups of Russian and Chinese warships, which was shown during the Sunday training session in the Yellow Sea.

“The training session has shown that Russian and Chinese warships can successfully operate in common cruising and combat formations while performing set tasks,” Admiral Chirkov said in an interview with Tass aboard the Marshal Shaposhnikov warship.

“Everything that we worked out on Saturday with Chinese counterparts on staff maps ashore, we have fulfilled on Sunday in practice on high seas: joint maneuvering, mutual security, joint use of weapons (air defence artillery firing and use of depth-charge rocket launchers),” Chirkov noted.

[Ryan Ruck]

Eastern Axis 'Peace Mission' Heralds New Cold War For The US

IN A description worthy of the grand traditions of communist double-think, the war games conducted by China and Russia this week were given the codename 'Peace Mission 2005'.

Washington was never likely to be taken in by the name for these apparently innocent exercises in the Yellow Sea. Instead, they were viewed as a clear challenge to US authority, as well as an indication of how the world's strategic balance of power is shifting.

In retrospect, the 1990s were a period of comparative innocence when America reigned supreme. The Cold War had been won and the US looked forward to a generous peace dividend. Overseas, no other country could hope to compete with them, while such international crises as the Balkans and genocide in Rwanda did little to trouble US borders.

Times change. China's continuing rise as an economic and military powerhouse has altered the balance of international power politics, while Vladimir Putin's Russia seeks to find ways of regaining the self-respect it lost when the Soviet Union was eclipsed.

Suspicions of US hegemony played a part in Moscow's decision to oppose the toppling of Saddam Hussein, while Russian economic interests in Iran offer another potential area for tension with Washington.

"China does not now face a direct threat from another nation," reported the Pentagon last month. "Yet, it continues to invest heavily in its military, particularly in programmes designed to improve power projection." This week's exercises claim to be about strengthening Chinese capabilities in dealing with "separatism", i.e. Taiwan, the renegade province the US is sworn to defend and China would like to recover.

According to the writer Robert Kaplan, Chinese investment in new military technology and exercises such as this week's war games demonstrate how serious Beijing is about challenging Washington.

"The Chinese will approach us asymmetrically, as terrorists do. In Iraq, the insurgents have shown us the low end of asymmetry, with car bombs. But the Chinese are poised to show us the high end of the art. That is the threat.

"There are a lot of big-power games going on, with overlapping interests and opportunities to co-operate. Nobody's predicting conflict, but we must be careful."

A new Moscow-Beijing axis offers potential benefits to both parties. China can take advantage of Russia's still-formidable military knowledge, including the purchase of bombers and navy ships, while Chinese economic muscle is of obvious value to Russia. The US retains enormous advantages but, as the experience of Afghanistan and Iraq has demonstrated, is stretched perilously thin.

This week's war games "signal the first real post-Cold War steps, beyond inflammatory rhetoric, by Russia and China to balance - and, ultimately, diminish - US power across Asia," said Peter Brookes, a former Pentagon official now working at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

"If America doesn't take strategic steps to counter these efforts, it will lose influence to Russia and China in an increasingly important part of the world. The long-term challenge is going to be managing China's rise, not Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism."

Although in the past China has followed Deng Xiaoping's maxim that Beijing should "observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; never claim leadership", it has recently become a more aggressive player on the international stage.

As the world's second-largest consumer of oil and third-largest importer of oil, China has carefully cultivated ties with what Washington deems "problem" countries such as Iran, the Sudan and Venezuela.

Chinese investment in both Africa and Latin America continues to grow, while Russia's willingness to supply Iran's nuclear industry demonstrates the scale of the challenge the US faces in a world much more complex than the quietly confident years of the 1990s.

[Ryan Ruck]

Paratroopers Land on China's Coast

BEIJING -- Russian and Chinese paratroopers landed along China's northeastern coast over the weekend as some 9,000 soldiers from the two countries began the second stage of their historic first joint military exercises, news reports said.

The war games are the result of warming ties between Moscow and Beijing, motivated by growing concern at U.S. dominance of world affairs. They started Thursday in Vladivostok.

The exercise Saturday on the Shandong Peninsula, which juts into the Yellow Sea, was meant to simulate landing a joint force to stabilize a fictional country.

A group of 86 paratroopers with 18 military vehicles landed at a Chinese training ground and practiced "reaching ... the assault position and the launching of an attack at enemy positions," Itar-Tass reported.

About 7,000 Chinese troops and 1,800 Russians with ships, fighter planes and amphibious vehicles are taking part in "Peace Mission 2005," Chinese state television said.

The exercises, which end Thursday, are meant to improve cooperation in "dealing with crises and organizing coordinated actions in the backdrop of the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism," China's official Xinhua News Agency said.

China's secretive military barred most foreign reporters from the exercises. Itar-Tass said Russian media were refused access to Chinese forces.

Russian and Chinese officials tried last week to reassure their neighbors, saying the military exercises were not directed at any other country.

The evening national news on Chinese state television showed Chinese and Russian officers gathered in a command center before computer screens showing maps of the exercise. The report showed Chinese soldiers driving tanks and troop carriers and preparing for parachute jumps, though it did not say when those activities occurred. It showed Russian fighters and cargo planes landing at a Chinese base and a Chinese schoolgirl giving a bouquet of flowers to a Russian naval officer.

The weekend exercises were to include 14 ships and about 50 Russian and Chinese warplanes and the midair refueling of Russian-made Chinese Sukhoi-30 interceptors by a Russian flying tanker, Itar-Tass reported.

The exercises are allowing Moscow to showcase military hardware that it hopes to sell to Beijing.

[Ryan Ruck]

China, Russia Conduct Maritime Blockade Drill

QINGDAO, Aug. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese and Russian troops participating in a joint military exercise carried out a maritime blockade drill in the sea area to the southeast of the Shandong Peninsula Tuesday.

A few minutes after 11:00 a.m., Chinese battle planes provided air-cover for a formation of Chinese and Russian warships, and then a Chinese and Russian air force an echelon fought a fierce battle with enemy fighters in the air.

Chinese fighters blocked enemy battle planes with air-to-air missiles and took the air domination above the sea area. Meanwhile, the joint naval formation sank enemy submarines with deck-landing anti-submarine helicopters and depth bombs.

At 11:20, Chinese and Russian early warning planes and patrol planes guided the joint fleet to attack and destroy enemy warships. A Russian destroyer launched precision attacks on enemy targets, while Chinese warships fired missiles to destroy the enemy targets, using data and information transmitted by the patrol planes.

With the help the early warning system, the joint naval formation attacked enemy planes and missiles with ship-to-air missiles and quick-fire guns. They also interfered with enemy missiles of different types using infrared, photoelectric and platinic devices.

Participating in Tuesday's exercise were Russia's Marshal Shaposhnikov anti-submarine destroyer, a missile destroyer, and shipboard helicopters and A-50 early warning planes from the Russian Pacific Fleet. The Chinese contingent included three destroyers, three frigates, two submarines and 20 aircraft.

[Ryan Ruck]

Russia Plans Another Joint Military Exercise With China In 2006

MOSCOW, August 26 (RIA Novosti) - Following the historic Russian-Chinese military exercises conducted of the Shandong Peninsula, Russia is contemplating a similar exercise with China in 2006, a Defense Ministry official said.

"We first have to analyze the results of the Peace Mission 2005 joint Russian-Chinese anti-terrorist exercise," the official said. "It has not been decided yet, but I think we will conduct another exercise with China next year."

Russia and China have started working on certain ideas regarding the exercise, including the possibility of the participation of other Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, Mongolia, Iran and Pakistan have observer status.

"It is possible by the time we decided to conduct new exercises with China, other SCO countries would be willing to join, including the observers, like India," the official said.

[Ryan Ruck]

War Games Seen As 'Message'

By Bill Gertz
The Washington Times
August 17, 2005


Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday checked out a supersonic strategic bomber in Moscow. The bomber was headed for a training mission.

A joint Chinese and Russian military exercise set to begin tomorrow is meant as a political signal to the United States, in addition to helping Moscow showcase its weapons for sale to China, U.S. defense and intelligence officials said yesterday.

"For the Chinese and the Russians, this is a message to the United States," one U.S. official said. "They want to see our bases in Central Asia and presence in Asia cut back."

The fact that the United States was not invited to observe the war games is a sign of the anti-U.S. nature of the exercises, said several officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Defense officials from India, Iran, Pakistan and Mongolia will be present in China to observe the exercises.

"We expect that China will feature some of its latest assets alongside visiting Russian forces, showcasing their military power and credible force," said a defense official. This official said any time that nuclear powers such as China and Russia conduct exercises together "it is of international interest."

The eight days of exercises have been dubbed Peace Mission 2005 and will involve about 10,000 Russian and Chinese troops who will fight "terrorists" in a simulated regional conflict.

Because China defines terrorism as including "separatists," U.S. intelligence officials think the exercises are directed at Taiwan, which Beijing views as a breakaway province, and the United States, which has vowed to protect Taiwan from mainland attack.

Defense officials said the forces participating in the war games are designed to practice amphibious landings and anti-submarine warfare -- not traditional counterterrorism operations.

Both China and Russia notified the United States about the exercises, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, and "we would hope that anything that they do is not something that would be disruptive to the current atmosphere in the region."

Meanwhile, U.S. military and civilian intelligence agencies are stepping up monitoring activities in the western Pacific, defense officials said.

Numerous intelligence-gathering aircraft, ships and satellites are focusing on China's Shandong Peninsula and the Yellow Sea, where the war games will be held.

"We are observing the activities," said Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita.

The U.S. Pacific Command will use EP-3 surveillance aircraft along China's coasts and two Navy surveillance ships that were dispatched to waters near the exercises.

A particular concern over the maneuvers is Russia's planned use of four strategic bombers, some Pentagon officials said.

Russia's Interfax military news service reported last week that more than 20 Russian strategic bombers and transport jets will participate, including two Tu-95 bombers and four Tu-22 bombers that will fire cruise missiles as part of the games.

The games will begin with Russian and Chinese military forces conducting anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare simulation with two Russian warships, six Chinese warships, and two Chinese diesel submarines.

A second part will involve joint Russian and Chinese amphibious assault on the Shandong Peninsula. Several hundred paratroopers also will be dropped from aircraft.

Russian military chief of staff Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said in Moscow last week that the idea of the war games "is that Russia and China are helping a third country tackling issues connected with proliferation of illegal militarized formations that are beginning anti-state activities."

"Naval forces can and must be used to blockade -- in particular from the sea -- part of the territory of this state, just as aircraft can also be used to blockade from the air," he told the Izvestia newspaper.

Chinese troops have been spotted preparing for the exercises at Weifang, about 50 miles from the Yellow Sea port of Qingdao, according to Chinese press reports.

The war games will be held over eight days in the area of the Shandong Peninsula, which is located close to the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Yesterday in Moscow, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said the joint exercises with China are one of four major military maneuvers set for August.

An Atlantic military exercise set to begin today will include long-range missile flight tests and an aircraft carrier deployment across the Atlantic, he said. Other exercises will be held near the Caspian Sea and in Uzbekistan with that country's military forces.

[Ryan Ruck]

Putin Praises Russia-China Military Exercise At Talks With Hu Jintao

NEW YORK, September 15 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is pleased to have good relations with China. "We have really developed a very good mechanism of cooperation and I'm pleased that we have good relations," the Russian head of state said at a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

"We are satisfied with the level of relations both in the economic sphere and between the two countries' Defence Ministries," Putin stressed. The Russian leader recalled that the two countries have recently held a "very successful joint military exercise in the Chinese territory and a meeting with the Chinese defence minister."

The first joint Russian-Chinese military exercise Peace Mission 2005 was held on August 18-25. After that Putin met Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan in Sochi in September. The Chinese Defence chief proposed to hold a new joint exercise.

Hu Jintao said he has met Putin "already several times" this year. "This testifies to the high level of Russian-Chinese interaction," believes the Chinese president.

The two leaders said they are “very pleased to meet again" on Thursday. The meeting was held at the Waldorf Towers Hotel in New York where Putin and Hu Jintao are accommodated.

Bragging on our home soil!!! That takes some nerve!!!

[Ryan Ruck]

War Games: Russia, China Grow Alliance

In foreign policy it’s critical to “know thine enemy.” So American policymakers should be aware that Russia and China are inching closer to identifying a common enemy — the United States.

The two would-be superpowers held unprecedented joint military exercises Aug. 18-25. Soothingly named “Peace Mission 2005,” the drills took place on the Shandong peninsula on the Yellow Sea, and included nearly 10,000 troops. Russian long-range bombers, the army, navy, air force, marine, airborne and logistics units from both countries were also involved.

Moscow and Beijing claim the maneuvers were aimed at combating terrorism, extremism and separatism (the last a veiled reference to Taiwan), but it’s clear they were an attempt to counter-balance American military might.

Joint war games are a logical outcome of the Sino-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty signed in 2001, and reflect the shared worldview and growing economic ties between the two Eastern Hemisphere giants. As the Pravda.ru website announced, “the reconciliation between China and Russia has been driven in part by mutual unease at U.S. power and a fear of Islamic extremism in Central Asia.”

Relations between Russia and China have steadily improved since the mid-1980s. The recent military exercises may have helped renew a post-World War II alliance they forged against the U.S. It lasted several years before a bitter split, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced dictator Joseph Stalin’s bloody purges and refused Chairman Mao an honor to be a co-leader of the global communist movement.

Today, Moscow and Beijing want to build a multi-polar world. That would require diluting American global supremacy and opposing the U.S. rhetoric of democratization. Both sides are willing to bend to reach those goals. China, for example, supported Russia’s heavy-handed tactics in Chechnya. Russia, in turn, supported China’s demands that Taiwan reunite with the mainland.

A sign of their newfound cooperation surfaced during the July 6 Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. China and Russia demanded the U.S. provide a timetable for withdrawing its troops and bases from central Asia.

Geopolitically, China and Russia share interests as well. They both want to keep insecure central Asian dictators in power, because those dictators are likely to serve as a counterweight to American influence. Unfortunately, the harsh regimes may boost the case of radical Islamists and lead to more extremism and violence in post-Soviet Muslim areas and the Xinjiang province.

Perhaps more alarming from an American perspective is the close relationship both China and Russia have with Iran. China has signed 25-year, $50 billion deals to develop and import liquid natural gas from the giant South Pars field in Iran. Russia benefits from large-scale contracts with Iran, including construction of the Bushehr nuclear reactor.

If the U.S. and the three European powers, which failed to negotiate a halt in the Iranian nuclear program, bring the case against Tehran to the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China are likely to block real sanctions. They may threaten to veto a resolution calling for the use of force to terminate Iran’s nuclear-arms bid.

Moscow and Beijing want to work together because each country now views the other as its “strategic rear.” Given this reality, the U.S. should take prudent steps to drive a wedge between Russia and China. To do that, the Bush administration should:

—Work with Russia to battle radical Islamic groups in Central Asia. Opposing Islamic terrorism and militancy is a joint interest for the two powers. Washington should help develop joint energy, services and manufacturing projects in Central Asia among, for example, Russian, Turkish and Indian firms.

—Increase intelligence monitoring of relations between Russia and China, especially in national security areas. Intelligence gathering should focus on the condition of Russian forces in the Far East, including the possibility of the Russian Pacific Fleet’s intercepting the U.S. Seventh Fleet in any confrontation in the East China Sea.

—Strengthen military and security cooperation with India and Japan. The U.S. should work with them to secure shipping lanes and develop Central Asia and the Russian Far East to offset China’s growing economic power.

Despite strides in Sino-Russian rapprochement, Moscow remains nervous about China, especially its intentions in the Russian far east and Siberia. Riding the Chinese dragon may well prove even less comfortable for the Russians than they anticipate.

At that point, they may wish to renew a genuine partnership with the United States. But until then, we must monitor this emerging partnership carefully — and work to keep it from getting too cozy.