Chinese, Russian Militaries to Hold First Joint Drills

The week will begin with a news conference and a planning exercise in Vladivostok. Russian airborne troops and marines will then seize a beachhead on China's Shandong peninsula in advance of an inland offensive coordinated with the Chinese military, Vladimir Moltenskoi, a Russian army deputy commander, said in an interview with Russian television.

Toward the end of the exercise, the Russians will deploy strategic, long-range bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, which will fire cruise missiles at targets on the surface of the sea.

"You wonder, if this is a peacekeeping operation, what the strategic bombers are doing there," said Golts, the military analyst.

Moltenskoi said the strategic aircraft, as part of the simulation, would "prevent the vessels of any other countries from approaching the area of the peacekeeping operation."

But Zhao Zongjiu, who teaches at the People's Liberation Army's Nanjing Politics Institute, said in a published comment: "My own understanding is that Russia wants to achieve more military trade with China by engaging in the joint military exercises, in addition to its purpose of promoting military cooperation with China."

In particular, Russia is trying to interest the Chinese in nuclear submarines and strategic bombers, which, Golts said, could be deployed against the U.S. fleet in the Pacific. Golts said Russia was eager to lock in new contracts quickly, to hedge against the European Union lifting an arms embargo it imposed on China after the 1989 crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square.

The U.S. Defense Department has warned the European Union that lifting the embargo would bring "serious and numerous" consequences.

Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, deputy director for operations for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon recently that the U.S. Pacific Command planned to monitor the exercises.

"Clearly, there's interest in anything that affects security in the Pacific region," he said.

Correspondent Edward Cody in Beijing contributed to this report.