Beijing: China and Russia capable of maintaining peace, stability in region

MINNING (TASS): Building up interaction of the Russian and Chinese armies on land, in the air and at sea is an important direction of the militaries of the two countries, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Friday.
“The practice of holding joint operational and combat training measures has become regular for Russia and China. We have reached a high level of interaction of our armed forces on land, in the air and at sea. Building it up is an important direction of further activity,” the Russian defense minister said at a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe.
The Russian defense chief made this statement after the Sibu/Interaction 2021 joint Russia-China strategic drills involving over 10,000 troops came to an end at the Qingtongxia training ground in northern China. As Shoigu pointed out, more than two weeks passed since he met with his Chinese counterpart at a meeting of the defense ministers from the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held in the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, on July 28. The Russian defense chief thanked Wei Fenghe for an invitation to visit China and the opportunity to observe together the active phase of the Sibu/Interaction 2021 joint operational and strategic maneuvers.
“We have held this event on the territory of China with the participation of the Russian contingent for the first time, which has become a logical follow-up of our joint work that commenced in the course of the Vostok 2018 [East 2018] maneuvers of troops and forces, the Tsentr 2019 [Ce-nter 2019] and the Kavkaz 2020 [Caucasus 2020] strategic command and staff drills,” Shoigu said.
The Russian and Chinese armed forces have been also participating in Peace Mission multilateral counter-terror drills for many years, annually carry out joint air patrols by long-range aircraft of both countries and conduct Joint Sea naval maneuvers, the Rus-sian defense minister said.
Speaking about improving the military personnel’s combat skills, Shoigu pointed to the successes achieved by the teams from Russia and China at the International Army Games.
“China is a traditional participant and a co-organizer of these unique competitions among military professionals from various co-untries. I wish your teams successes,” Shoigu said. D-espite the pandemic, a rec-ord number of countries participate in the Internati-onal Army Games, he ad-ded. “I fully share your assessments of the current state and the prospects of the development of bilateral cooperation in the defense sphere,” Shoigu said, addressing his Chinese counterpart.
Practical interaction of the Russian Armed Forces and the People’s Liberation Army of China is reaching a new qualitative level and this contributes to global and regional stability, the Russian defense chief said.
China and Russia are capable of maintaining peace and stability in the region by joint efforts. The joint maneuvers were well organized, the Chinese defense chief said.
“The participating troops overcame a lot of negative factors, for example, the epidemic. They managed to set up a joint headquarters and joint groupings just within several days,” Wei Fenghe said.
The integrated control information system was tested for the first time during the drills, he pointed out. “The sides operated in a cohesive and coordinated manner and organized the process well and showed good interoperability,” the Chinese defense chief said.
“These drills are yielding obvious results as real warfare can be simulated at a very high level. This involves the methods of delivering a massive strike by firepower from all the sides, into the entire depth and helps organize firing interaction at big, medium and small heights and at large, medium and short ranges,” he stressed.
All these successes are an evidence of the high level of the two army’s fighting efficiency and the ability of the Chinese and Russian armies to fulfil counter-terror operations qualitatively, he added.
In his estimate, “the success of the drills shows that China and Russia have the full resolve and confidence and are quite capable of maintaining peace and stability in the region by joint efforts.”
Beginning the talks with his Russian counterpart, the Chinese defense chief said that this had been their second meeting over just half a month.
“This fully testifies to close relations between China and Russia, the indestructible ties between the Chinese and Russian servicemen and the strong and durable friendship between us personally,” Wei Fenghe said.