India-China joint counterterrorism training exercise held in Pune

Chinese soldiers stand at attention at the starting ceremony of the Hand-in-hand India-China Anti-Terrorism Joint Training Exercise in Pune, India, Nov. 17, 2014. The joint counterterrorism training exercise would last for ten days. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

The opening ceremony of the "Hand-in-Hand - 2014" China-India ground force joint anti-terrorism training was held at the Ond barracks in Poona city, Maharashtra, India, on the afternoon of November 17, 2014.

Shi Xiangyuan, head of the Chinese observation delegation and deputy commander of the Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), announced the kickoff of the China-India ground force joint anti-terrorism training.

He noted that this joint training is the fourth of its kind after China and India organized the ground force joint anti-terrorism trainings in 2007, 2008 and 2013 respectively.

It indicated that the joint trainings and exchanges between the Chinese and Indian ground forces have been on mechanized and regular track, become the important content and carrier of the military-to-military exchanges, and embodied the clear stance, firm determination and powerful capability of the two sides to jointly cope with terrorist threat.

This joint training aims to further exchange the experience and practices of the two sides in anti-terrorism training, explore and implement methods and approaches to carry out joint anti-terrorism operations, increase the understanding and mutual trust between the two militaries, so as to push forward the in-depth development of relations between the two countries and the two militaries.

After the opening ceremony, the observation delegations from both sides visited the anti-terrorism weaponry and equipment displayed by the participating detachments from the Chinese and Indian militaries.

The Chinese detachment performed wrestle skills and traditional Chinese martial arts including swordsmanship, sabre-play and Tai Chi Kung Fu Fan, while the Indian detachment performed traditional martial arts and saber dance and Markanb physical exercise.

In the next 10 days, the joint training will be carried out in three phases including adaptive training phase, basic training phase and actual-troop comprehensive drill phase.

Experience teaching, demonstration and observation, mixed-formation training and other approaches will be adopted for training on series of subjects including basic physique, tactical sign language, break-in and wipe-out, and search and elimination of simple explosives.

The urban joint actual-troop anti-terrorism drill will be carried out according the order of battlefield monitoring, 3D blockade and control, hostage rescue, joint attack, chase, search and elimination.