China-foreign joint military exercises institutionalized

The China-Kyrgyzstan joint anti-terrorism military exercise held in October 2002 was the first joint exercise conducted by Chinese and foreign militaries. From then on, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has stepped into an era of "open-door military exercises and training".

The PLA has conducted nearly 60 joint exercises and training with militaries of over 30 countries from five continents since 2002. Roughly speaking, the Army has played a leading role in around 50 percent of those exercises and training, and the Navy and the Air Force have become increasingly active on the stage of joint exercises and training.

From anti-terrorism to rescue and disaster reduction, the contents of the joint military exercises and training have become increasingly rich in the past ten years. Through long-time close exchanges in various fields with foreign militaries, the Chinese servicemen have expanded their horizons, learnt skills and updated their ideas.

It is hard to exactly measure how much effect the joint military exercises and training have produced on the development and construction of the PLA in such fields as military thought, combat command, troops' training, equipment utilization and logistics support. However, nearly each PLA commander getting off joint training ground feels that he has benefited much and almost every PLA troop unit leaving joint training ground shows changes for the better.

After ten years' development, the joint military exercises and training have embarked on an institutionalized and normalized development road and have become an important way and means of testing and improving troop units' combat effectiveness, promoting mutual strategic trust between countries and maintaining regional security and stability.