The presidents of Russia, China and four Central Asian states attended
unprecedented joint military exercises on 17 August, intended as a
display of strength before the Western world, Taipei Times reported.
The vast show of firepower at a training ground in the Russian province
of Chelyabinsk near the Kazakh border was the culmination of a nine-day
exercise dubbed "Peace Mission 2007" that began in northwest China.
It involved some 6,000 personnel from the six countries of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO): China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
A lone bugle player formally
opened the exercises and helicopters, fighter jets and ground forces
began using mock munitions to pound some 1,000 "terrorists" who had
taken over a village fabricated for the exercises.
While
Russia footed most of the bill for its phase of the exercises, spending
some US$80 million, they marked a new level of military cooperation
with China after the two countries held their first-ever joint
maneuvers two years ago.
Beijing contributed 1,700 personnel
and has sent war planes and helicopters to the Chebarkul training
ground in the rolling Urals countryside.
The SCO grew out of
a regional effort in the mid-1990s to reduce military forces along
common borders and has evolved into military and economic cooperation,
with the focus on Central Asia.
A glistening podium had been
set up for the presidents overlooking the mock village at the center of
the assault, from which surviving "insurgents" were later to try to
flee across a hypothetical national border.
The exercises
come after Thursday's summit where SCO leaders underlined their common
opposition to perceived US hegemony. The summit was held in the former
Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
observing.
Russian media have highlighted the exercises'
resemblance to an uprising in the Central Asian state of Uzbekistan in
2005. The Uzbek security forces' heavy-handed response has been called
a massacre by human rights researchers, and hundreds were allegedly
killed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin rallied to
Uzbekistan's side on that occasion and has likened US moves to foster
democracy in Central Asia to "a bull in a china shop."
China
meanwhile still views Central Asia's Ferghana Valley as "virtually the
main breeding ground for instability in the region," commented Russia's
Kommersant newspaper on Thursday.
