26 Dec 2007

India-China Joint Anti-Terror Exercise: An Assessment
Chennai Centre For China Studies, Chennai, India
Supplied note: "The latest paper of the Institute For Topical Studies, A-2/3, Bharathi Dasan Colony, K.K.Nagar, Chennai---600078, India, on the above subject is now available at the web site of the South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG), New Delhi, at [the URL below] - br."
Extract: "C3S Paper No.91 dated December 26, 2007, B.Raman [...] till August,2007, China had participated in eight anti-terror military exercises. Of these, two were multilateral under the SCO and the remaining six bilateral - two with Pakistan and one each with Russia, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan and Thailand. The smallest in terms of troop participation was with Thailand and the largest with Russia. The bilateral exercise with Russia was even larger than the multilateral exercises under the SCO.
3. The following were the defining characteristics of these exercises: * Totally confined to the Armed Forces. No participation by civilian counter-terrorism agencies either as observers or in any other capacity. * The focus was on the military (commando) approach to counter-terrorism in certain situations such as cross-border terrorism, hostage-taking in urban areas and aircraft hijacking. * The objective of the exercises was to familiarise each other with their respective capabilities for countering terrorism, with their training methods and methods of action; to demonstrate separately each otherŐs methods of action and to have a joint exercise at the end in which the two sides can test their ability to act jointly. * There was no brain-storming on the experiences and insights of the participants in dealing with specific situations in the past and the lessons drawn. 4. The limited scope of these exercises did not permit them to be trend-setters in the joint fight against terrorism. Their main achievement was in enabling military officers of the participating countries to get to know each other and in increasing their comfort level towards each other. [...]
8. The theme reflected more Chinese concerns over the possibility of alleged Tibetan extremists from the diaspora staging cross-border raids into Tibet in the event of instability in Tibet after the death of the Dalai Lama. This theme would be of little relevance to India since we have no reason to fear any cross-border terrorism against India originating from Chinese territory unless one day Al Qaeda seizes control of Xinjiang in China and the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) of Pakistan. Such a possibility is remote. 9. A more useful theme would have been to visualise different terrorist scenarios during and before next yearŐs Beijing Olympics and see how the intelligence,counter-terrorism agencies and the armed forces of the two countries could co-operate with each other to deal with the situation. " - b.raman
[The author of the paper, Mr B. Raman, is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India. - ed. ]
URL http://www.c3sindia.org/military/172/india-china-joint-anti-terror-exercise-an-assessment/
Internet Archive (www.archive.org) - the paper was not archived at the time of this abstract. However, in a few weeks time it will be available at web.archive.org/web/* /www.c3sindia.org - ed.
Link reported by: B. Raman (ram1994--at--vsnl.net)
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