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U.S. eyes humanitarian drills with Chinese military
Reuters
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The United States hopes to conduct its first ever humanitarian
disaster relief drills with the Chinese military in late 2009
or 2010, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command said on Wednesday.
Admiral Timothy Keating said he and Lt. Gen. Zhang Qinsheng,
a senior commander of the People's Liberation Army, had agreed
to begin "active consideration the formulation of a plan
that will lead to humanitarian assistance exercises relatively
soon."
The U.S. military, which has long sought to engage China's fast-growing
but secretive armed forces to avoid clashes in the Pacific, had
held search and rescue and signaling drills with the Chinese,
but never full disaster relief exercises, Keating told an audience
at the Heritage Foundation.
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Keating hosted Zhang, commander of China's Guangzhou Military
Region, at PACOM headquarters in Hawaii, where the Chinese official
was able to observe the initial staging of the nine-nation biannual
RIMPAC military exercises, he said.
Talks on the humanitarian exercises would likely get under way
early next year aimed at holding one set of land-based disaster
relief drills in each country within 15 and 18 months, Keating
said.
The Pacific Command helped cement ties with the Chinese military
by sending two C-17 cargo planes carrying chain saws and generators
to help relief work in the Sichuan earthquake in May, following
earlier help with Chinese ice storms, he said.
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