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Sino-Russian drill to begin despite crash

By Peng Kuang in Taonan and Li Xiaokun in Khabarovsk (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-22 06:55

Chinese and Russian troops will kick off their five-day joint anti-terror drill today, despite the loss of an aircraft on Sunday.

The Chinese military plane and its crew of two was preparing to join the massive exercise, the third such drill since 2005.

Chinese soldiers maintain a helicopter for the incoming military exercise in Taonan, northeast China's Jilin Province, July 20, 2009. [Xinhua]

The Xinhua News Agency reported that the fighter-bomber was flying over the Taonan tactical training base in Jilin province when it went down. The cause of the crash was not immediately known and military authorities are investigating.

With troops arriving for the start of the drills in a remote area in the heart of the Horqin Grassland, Baicheng, a small city at the border of Jilin and Inner Mongolia, finds itself the center of attention.

Special coverage: Peace Mission 2009 Related readings:  Joint military exercise targets spread of terrorism  Joint training before the start of Peace Mission 2009 military drill  Camp opens to Peace Mission 2009 soldiers  Russian military in China for anti-terror drill  China, Russia to conduct anti-terror exercise

Since early July, supplies have been arriving by ground and air for Peace Mission - 2009.

In Khabarovsk, Russia's largest city in the Far East and the headquarters of its Far East Military Command, Chief of the General Staff of Chinese Armed Forces Chen Bingde will hold strategic talks today with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Makarov, before ordering the start of the drill.

Makarov will visit Beijing tomorrow.

Zhang Zhaozhong, a military strategist with the University of National Defense, said such talks at the start of military exercises will likely involve a wide range of senior military experts.

He said the experts will analyze the overall anti-terror situation, including the situation in Afghanistan and the terrorism trends in member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Peng Guangqian, a Beijing-based military strategist, said Western media has misunderstood the intention of the joint anti-terror exercises and wrongly interpreted them as sending a signal that Beijing had abandoned its decades-old strategy of non-alliance.

"The drill is no longer based on the thinking pattern of the Cold War. It has no particular enemy and focuses on a broader security area, including non-traditional threats," he said.