'Peace Mission' drill, an anti-terror exercise

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is asserting itself once again. With its largest ever joint anti-terror military exercise on August 9-17, the organization will send an apparent warning to terrorists, separatists and extremists-the three main threats that the regional organization is committed to confronting.

The drill called "Peace Mission 2007" will be held in Chelyabinsk in Russia's Ural mountain region and in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. All six SCO members-China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan-will take part. Around 6,500 military personnel and 80 aircraft will be involved, according to a Trend News Agency report.

Chinese analysts have been vocal about the drill's implications in anticipation of the unprecedented SCO exercise. While probing its profound political repercussions, they emphasized the six countries' unflinching resolve to fight the "three evil forces." Ouyang Wei, a professor at the National Defense University of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), said that Peace Mission 2007 will be an SCO anti-terror drill involving all its member states and will have the largest number of troops that have ever participated in its drills.

"The exercise aims to combat terrorism," Ouyang said. "It will not target any other country or concern the interests of non-SCO states. All these are evidence of the SCO's firm determination to fight the three evil forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism." The joint exercise will showcase the progress made by the armed forces of the six SCO members, Ouyang said. Russia's armed forces are well trained and have enhanced their battle effectiveness through military reform in recent years, he said.

While inheriting the fine traditions of the Soviet military, the forces of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are constantly making innovations, he added. Thanks to its modernisation campaign, the Chinese military has made great headway in terms of the quality of military personnel and equipment and logistic support, and now is able to fulfil the tasks assigned to it by the regional security organization, Ouyang said.

China's Ministry of Defense said that 1,600 soldiers from China's army and air force, including airborne and logistic units, would take part in the drill. It is the first time that the Chinese military has sent so many soldiers and armaments to such a distant drill.

"Enhanced security cooperation in the SCO, strengthened China-Russia relations, improved anti-terrorism capacity of the SCO members and accelerated modernization of their armed forces will be the four messages that Peace Mission 2007 is expected to convey to the world," said Peng Guangqian, a research fellow at the Academy of Military Sciences of the PLA.

Peng believes that the security cooperation in the SCO is no longer limited to disarmament and border security. The organization is considering how to cope with conventional and non-conventional security threats from a broader perspective, he said.

Unlike previous anti-terror drills, which were held in the two countries' border regions, the coming drill will be carried out in Russia's hinterlands. Besides the drill, China and Russia plan to conduct a number of military exchanges including a Chinese fleet's visit to Russia, programs that are sure to cement the ties between the two countries' armed forces, Peng said.

The SCO members share the strategic consensus to safeguard the region's security and stability and promote its development and prosperity. Given the facts that the total area of the SCO member states accounts for three fifths of the Eurasian Continent and that their combined population represents one quarter of the world total, the region's stability and prosperity is of great significance to world peace and stability, Peng said.

The anti-terror exercise was decided on at the defence ministers' meeting in April last year and was approved by the SCO Summit two months later. After rounds of consultations by military and legal experts from the six SCO member states, SCO defense ministers signed an agreement on the exercise on June 27 this year in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

(Courtesy: Beijing Review)