Article Posted on : - Nov 15, 2013

BEIJING (PTI): The 10-day joint exercise by the Indian and Chinese armies demonstrated that China wants to expand cooperation with foreign countries and build a more transparent image of the world's largest standing military.

"Under its new leadership, China is more eager and active with its military, which foreign countries used to regard as 'mysterious'," Li Qinggong, deputy secretary-general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies, said.

Code-named 'Hand-in-Hand 2013', Indian and Chinese armies on Wednesday ended their 10-day joint anti-terrorism training exercise with a live fire drill in southwest China, demonstrating their determination in jointly safeguarding regional peace and stability.

"Anti-terrorism is a common challenge for the two countries as well as all regional players. Joint exercises in this field can help better combat this challenge and therefore stabilise the situation in Southeast Asia," Wang Baofu, a professor of military strategy with the National Defense University of China's People's Liberation Army, said.

China and the US are also holding their disaster relief exercise in Hawaii. Two days earlier, China and Indonesia concluded their week-long anti-terrorism drill in Bandung.

"These joint military exercises hold considerable political weight because Beijing hopes to deepen mutual trust with foreign countries with these drills and remove their worries about the rise of China," Li said.

A series of military exercises between China, the US, India and Indonesia demonstrate that the Chinese military wants to expand cooperation with foreign countries and build a more transparent image, experts said.

"This (US-China joint exercise) is significant because it shows the determination of the two militaries to find new ways of cooperating, in keeping with the spirit of the new type of major country relations outlined by Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama," Ralph A Cossa, president of Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu, Hawaii, was quoted as saying by state-run China Daily on Thursday.

He said practical experience is a big advantage of China's 2.3 million-strong military, especially in dealing with disasters on a very large scale since 2008, while logistical ability and coordination challenges still remain an area that the US can assist in this regard, while the US military can also learn from their Chinese colleagues. "It's a win-win effort."

The drill in Hawaii marks the first time that Chinese soldiers have participated in a military drill on a US territory. China sent 60 soldiers and observers to the exercise while the US sent 50 participants.