BEIJING: Pakistan Military on Saturday attended the 6th International Cadets Week (ICW) in China to promote bilateral and regional interaction for learning defence capability practices.
A total of 31 cadets from the militaries academies of 11 countries, including Pakistan, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Japan, Netherlands, India, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey attended the event held in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province.
A total of 73 Chinese cadets from 11 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) academies were also present among the visiting cadets.
The week-long event hosted by the PLA Army Engineering University was aimed to provide a platform for cadets to have more exchanges, besides learning and improving from each other, according to China’s Defense Ministry.
The cadets participated in military exercises under PLA’s command during the week. Their training courses included gun shooting, indoor obstacle courses, field training, stimulation training of actions of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force (UNPF) as well as courses on Chinese traditional culture.
Meanwhile, Chinese Defence Ministry Spokesperson Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang announced that China will further advance its military ties with Pakistan as a part of joint efforts to promote their defence capability.
While making the announcement at a news briefing during the event, he said “China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners. The militaries of both countries have been maintaining a high-level defence and security cooperation”.
Earlier, the Pakistani military had put on a good performance in the recently concluded Zhuhai Air Show. The high-level cooperation and exchanges in different services between the two militaries show great mutual strategic trust between the two sides.
“We are positive about further advancing military relationship with Pakistan,” Ren Guoqiang added.
He further told reporters that Chinese and Pakistani Air Forces will begin their 7th Joint Air Force Exercise at Bholari Air Force Base in Pakistan this week.
The Chinese side is sending fighters, fighter-bombers and early warning aircraft to the exercise. This exercise is included in the annual cooperation plan between the two countries and is a model of China-Pakistan Air Forces’ cooperation.
“This exercise will help promote bilateral air force cooperation and improve combat capabilities of both sides,” Ren Guoqiang further added.
In response to a question, the spokesperson said that China has been stressing training for combat-readiness and have conducted quality training in different arms and services at the domestic front. “We also promote high standard training organised according to plans and have conducted more basic tactical training, in addition to strengthening the supervision over military training,” he concluded.
