China & India: Now Their Soldiers March ‘Hand-in-Hand’
Indian and Chinese soldiers are at present playing war games in the Yunnan Province in the most southwest region of China (bordering the countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Burma), a first-ever such military exercise. Heralding a dramatic reversal in diplomatic relationship between the emerging two super powers that had fought a bloody war in 1962. This joint military exercise has a great symbolic value in the context of the improving Indo-Chinese relationship which have thawed considerably since 1993.
China and India last year signed a memorandum of understanding to institutionalize training and exercise exchanges (and other contacts) between the two militaries. Since then the two have been sending officers to each other’s military institutions for training; and military delegations too have been visiting each other’s country on a regular basis.
India has also been conducting such exercises with the US and other countries’ military personnel.
“China and India will hold their first joint anti-terror military drill starting tomorrow (Thursday) – a sign of growing military exchanges and mutual trust between the two neighbors,” reports China Daily. Codenamed ‘Hand-in-Hand, 2007′, the military exercise will be held in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
” ‘The joint training is aimed at enhancing understanding and mutual trust between Chinese and Indian armies and strengthening their exchanges in the anti-terror areas,’ according to a brief statement from the Chinese foreign office of the Ministry of National Defense. ‘It is also aimed at deterring the ‘three evil forces’ – separatists, extremists and terrorists – and promote the strategic partnership for peace and prosperity between China and India.’
Indian troops have been picked up from forces fighting insurgencies in restive north-eastern India and Indian-administered Kashmir, the BBC quotes news reports.
Indo-Chinese relations are blossoming on other fronts. “Last year, China agreed to reopen the strategic Nathu La pass to border trade, thereby accepting Sikkim as a part of India.
“But in the last year China appeared to be uncomfortable with India’s growing strategic ties with US, cemented through a series of joint exercises, including the huge five nation naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, this year. Analysts say visit of Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi to China last month has helped put the bilateral relations back on the right track, and China appears to be no longer objecting to the India-US nuclear deal that had initially upset it…”
Annual bilateral trade between China and India is worth 25 billion dollars, while trade between China and Russia is double that. Trade between India and Russia is a mere 4 billion dollars, much of it military spending. More here…
