The first-ever war games between Russia and China will conclude on Thursday August 25 after a week of maneuvers that alarmed the US over Beijing’s increasing regional influence and military build-up.
Some 10,000 troops, mostly Chinese with about 1800 Russians, were involved in the operation, dubbed “Peace mission 2005”. The campaign consisted of invading an imaginary country thrown into upheaval by ethnic extremism and restoring order under UN sanctions.
The climax of the eight-day war games, which began in Russia’s far-east Vladivostok, will be an amphibious and paratrooper landing on China’s Shandong peninsula.
The Sino-Russia alliance asserted that the exercises were purely aimed at “jointly striking international terrorism, extremism and separatism” and did not target any country in particular.
General Liang Guanglie, chief of the general staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, said they were designed to “protect peace and stability in our region and the whole world”.
However, experts say that China’s military ambitions, tough stance on Taiwan and growing anti-US sentiments raise concerns about Beijing’s intentions. The military manoeuvres come just weeks after Major General Zhu Chenghu said China should use nuclear weapons against the US if it sided with Taiwan, which China claims to be its province.
“The long-term challenge is going to be managing China’s rise, not Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism,” said Peter Brookes, Heritage Foundation senior fellow and former Pentagon official.
Some view the showcase of military power, which included the use of Russia’s latest aircraft, as a warning to Washington that the days of US dominance in the region are over.
The involvement of Russia’s Tu-95 “Bear” strategic bombers and Tu-22 “Backfire” long-range bombers in the exercises – warplanes that can carry conventional or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles – has been noted as unusual for a peacekeeping operation and perhaps signals more aggressive trends.
Last January, Russian Air Force commander General Vladimir Mikhailov said his forces would use the warplanes to demonstrate their performance to China, adding: “If they have the money, we will sell them to them.” Beijing reportedly has expressed interest in buying as many as 40 Backfires, reported Washington Times.
Beijing and Moscow, Communist allies in the 1950s, had a bitter split in the 1960s and mended ties only in the 1990s. Since then Russia has become China’s biggest supplier of weapons. Not being an EU member, Russia is not under obligations to follow the ongoing arms sales embargo to China, imposed after the 1989 crackdown of the student uprising.
Washington has remained unusually quiet about the latest war games. The US has not sent any observers to the exercises, but said it was “very interested” in how they take shape. The military drill could offer Western intelligence agencies a “very revealing” satellite look at China’s capabilities.
At the moment the diplomatic challenge for Washington is to neutralise some Chinese gains with Russia by improving ties with Moscow. China’s growing regional influence has already driven the US out of the central Asian country of Uzbekistan, which used to house one of its military bases.
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