China-Russia drills enter final days

Thousands Chinese and Russian troops were due to launch a mock amphibious landing on a Chinese beach yesterday, as Russia's defense minister said their joint war games underscore a growing strategic partnership between the former Cold War adversaries.

Troops due to assault the coast of the northern province of Shandong with amphibious tanks and other weaponry, a day after the war games opened with ships and planes establishing air and sea blockades of the area. By midday, there were no reports on progress of the exercise.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted by Russia's Interfax news service as saying the recent unprecedented military cooperation between the sides was based on a "strategic partnership."

"The fact that such large-scale exercises are taking place demonstrates that our military cooperation is at a high level," Ivanov was quoted as telling Russian journalists in China on Tuesday.

The eight-day exercise, dubbed "Peace Mission 2005," involves about 7,000 Chinese troops and 1,800 Russians, along with state-of-the-art warships, warplanes and armor.

They were inaugurated last week with planning sessions in the Russian port of Vladivostok and will end today. At the weekend, paratroopers from the two militaries landed in Shandong in a joint deployment drill.

Chinese Russian generals have sought to reassure the region that the exercises aren't directed against any other nation. Under a fictional scenario, the forces have a UN mandate to stabilize a country plunged into violence by ethnic strife.

Yet Chinese media and military analysts say the exercises are also a show of force aimed at showing Washington that Russia and China can respond to provocations, especially over Taiwan, which Beijing has vowed to take control over by force if need be.

The two nations have also been unnerved by US deployments and have used their dominance of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization -- whose defense ministers are observing the drills -- to demand withdrawals of American forces.

US of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday the US was monitoring the games, but didn't see them as threatening.

Russia seen as using the games to pitch further sales of weapons to China, one of its leading customers, including long-range strategic bombers able to carry nuclear weapons.

Russia China fought border skirmishes after falling out in the 1950s.

However, ties have strengthened following the rise of autocratic Russian leader Vladimir Putin, aided by China's hunger for Russian oil and gas and mutual concerns over US military deployments on the countries' borders in Central Asia.