India
and China Resume Annual Hand in Hand Military Exercise
After One-Year Gap. By Ankit Panda December 11, 2018
India and China are set to resume their
annual Hand-in-Hand joint exercise this week. The exercise was last held in
2016; it was suspended in 2017 amid heightened tensions between the two
countries following the disengagement of a standoff between their armed forces
on the Doklam plateau, a piece of territory claimed by India-aligned Bhutan
that is also claimed by China. This year’s iteration of the Hand-in-Hand
exercise will be the 7th in the series.
The exercise will
convene from December 11 to 23 in Chengdu, China, according to an Indian
Army statement. “The aim of the exercise is to build and promote
close relations between armies of both the countries and to enhance ability of
joint exercise commander to take military contingents of both nations under command,”
Lt. Col. Mohit Vaishnava of the Indian Army
noted in a statement.
“The exercise will involve tactical level
operations in an International Counter Insurgency/ Counter Terrorist
environment under UN mandate,” Vaishnava added. “Exercise
Hand-in-Hand 2018 will go a long way to further cement relationship between
both the nations and will act as a catalyst in bringing bonhomie at grassroots
levels between the armies of both countries.”
According to Chinese
Ministry of Defense Col. Ren Guoqiang, the Chinese side will send a
contingent of 100 People’s Liberation Army troops to participate in the drills.
“Subjects of the joint training will include adaptive training,
basic training, live-fire shooting and comprehensive drills,” Ren noted in a regular Defense Ministry press briefing at
the end of November. “The joint training can help promote mutual trust
and understanding, deepen practical exchanges and cooperation between troops
and improve their capabilities in counter-terrorism.”
The exercise marks
another example of a return to normal practice in military-to-military
relations between the two countries after 2017, which saw bilateral ties dip
precipitously. A summit meeting earlier this year, in April, between Chinese
President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Wuhan, China,
saw the two leaders work to reset bilateral ties after the standoff of 2017.
“Prime Minister Modi and President
Xi underlined that as two major countries India and China have wider and
overlapping regional and global interests,” the
declaration issued by the Indian side after the Wuhan meeting noted. In that
same statement, the Indian side noted that Modi and Xi acknowledged the common
challenge posed by terrorism to both their countries. Recently, Modi met Xi as part of a trilateral meeting
with Russian President Vladimir Putin and in the context of the five-country
BRICS grouping on the sideline of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations-hosted summits in Singapore.
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