India, China likely to finalise military exercise schedule next month

NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the spate of incursions by Chinese Army into Indian territory, the two countries are going ahead with finalising the schedule for their military exercises planned in October.

A Chinese Army team is scheduled to visit India in the last week of August for holding a planning conference at the the Eastern Command headquarters in Kolkata and finalise the dates and details of the third Hand-in-Hand exercise to be held in Chengdu region in China, sources said here.

In the two-week exercise, the two sides will practice counter insurgency and counter terrorism manoeuvres under the UN mandate, they said.

The third edition of the exercise is being held after a gap of almost five years after the drills in Belgaum in December 2008. The first edition of the exercise was held in Kunming in China in 2007.

After the denial of visa to the then Northern Army Commander Lt Gen BS Jaswal by China in 2010, New Delhi had frozen all bilateral defence exchanges with Beijing.

The two sides decided to resume the joint exercises in 2012 after the meeting between the then Chinese defence minister Gen Liang Guanglie and his Indian counterpart A K Antony here.

Recently, the two countries have also decided to ramp up their military exchanges by having joint exercises between their navies and the air forces.

The exchange of officers in training institutions is also planned to be enhanced by the two countries.