China Daily:
Beijing-Moscow exercise will not target third party, Chinese military official says
China and Russia announced on Tuesday that they will conduct an anti-missile joint exercise next year as the United States plans to deploy a missile defense system near them.
The drill, which will be the second of its kind, was con-firmed at a China-Russia joint news briefing on missile defense on the sidelines of the seventh Xiangshan Forum, a high-end defense affairs dialogue, in Beijing.
The U.S. and the Republic of Korea have infuriated Beijing and Moscow by advancing their joint plan to deploy in the ROK the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, a missile-defense system whose radar, with a radius of 2,000 kilometers, could cover parts of China and Russia.
Major General Cai Jun, with the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission, described the plan to deploy the anti-missile system as “damaging to global strategic balance and regional security and stability”.
Cai noted that the two militaries held their first joint computer-simulated anti-missile drill in May in Moscow with the aim of “training the capabilities of both sides in joint air-defense and antimissile actions”.
Cai did not elaborate on the potential format or contents of the second joint drill and said the exercise “will not target any third party”.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told the forum on Tuesday morning that the U.S. is using the tension on the Korean Peninsula to deploy excessive weapons, and said the THAAD deployment is “not just a regional issue”, as it will increase tension.
Ji Zhiye, president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said an anti-missile drill “is not necessarily targeting a specific country or direction, but it is a fact that there are just several countries that could threaten China and Russia with missiles”.
The THAAD deployment will “deal a blow to global strategic balance”, and both Beijing and Moscow should “make clear their negative attitudes toward THAAD” by holding their second drill next year, Ji said.
Without directly naming the U.S., State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Chang Wanquan told the forum on Tuesday morning that “a stand-alone country or a few seek absolute advantage in the military domain and consistently reinforce military alliances”.
