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India-China air forces to interact in November

NEW DELHI: India and China will initiate air force level interaction with an aerobatics display by the Indian Air Force (IAF) from bases made available by their Chinese counterparts in November this year, said official sources. This will be a follow-up to the naval interaction and the joint Army exercises last December.

Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Homi Major confirmed the interaction but said the event would be held “later this year.” The IAF was also open to the idea of joint fighter exercises in the near future.

These interactions are aimed at providing more muscle to the confidence building measures initiated by both countries to ensure tranquillity along the line of actual control (LAC). The two armies regularly interact with each other on the LAC and the Indian Navy has made it a point to interact with the Chinese People’s Liberation Navy (PLAN) when it forays to the east.

Interaction had initially sputtered due to differences at the bureaucratic level over a number of issues. In 2003, the Indian Navy wanted to hold anti-piracy exercises with the PLAN, but Beijing pointed out that this task was performed by its Coast Guard. The exercise format was then changed to accommodate the tasks under the mandate of the PLAN. Last year, there was delay in the joint exercises as India wanted rank equivalent personnel from the other side. This time, the Chinese were accommodative of the Indian point of view. With an institutional mechanism set up in the form of an Annual Defence Dialogue last year, the path has since been considerably smoothened.

While India has a nine-aircraft ‘Suryakiran’ team powered by Polish origin Kiran trainer aircraft, China has a six-aircraft aerobatics line-up derived from the MiG-21 fighters.

Thiruvananthapuram Special Correspondent reports:

Defence Minister A. K. Antony said on Saturday that the Army would hold joint exercises with the Chinese forces in India soon.

Inaugurating a ‘Think Tank on Defence and Foreign Policy’ at the V. K. Krishna Menon Study Centre for International Relations of the University of Kerala, Mr. Antony said similar exercises were on as part of defence cooperation with various countries. This should make it clear to those who criticised the Government for the joint exercises with the U.S. that there was no shift in foreign or defence policies.

“India today is not the India of 1947. The world today is not the world then. We must understand the changes and evolve accordingly,” he said.

It was in this vein that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had, in 1988, reached out to China. The joint Army exercises were in continuation of this process, Mr. Antony said.

Jammu University Vice Chancellor Amitabh Mattoo delivered the keynote address. Kerala University Vice Chancellor M.K. Ramachandran Nair presided.

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