Beijing -
Chinese and Russian naval ships gathered for a naval drill involving 19 ships on Friday, the largest joint exercise to include China's People's Liberation Army.
The Chinese fleet of seven ships arrived in Russia's far eastern port of Vladivostock early on Friday to join the Russian ships taking part in the one-week exercise, state media said.
The ships were scheduled to stage Maritime Joint Exercise 2013 in the nearby Peter the Great Bay off the Sea of Japan, China's Ministry of Defence said.
Eight types of planes and two special forces units would also join the exercises, which include anti-submarine and air-defence drills, it said.
The event posed “no military threat” to other nations and was “just one of a series of routine exercises between China and Russia in the context of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries,” said the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party.
Wu Shengli, the commander of China's navy, said the exercise “also marks the formation of the institutionalised and normalised mechanism for China-Russia maritime joint exercises.”
“It is of great strategic significance to... improving the capability to jointly address the maritime security threats and highlighting the firm determination to jointly safeguard world peace and regional stability,” Wu was quoted as saying on the Defence Ministry's website.
The technological highlight of the exercise would be the two sides' extensive use of fire control radar, illuminating radar, missile guidance radar, sonar, photo-electric communication and other electronic equipment, said Zhang Junshe, a naval researcher with the People's Liberation Army. - Sapa-dpa