The Chinese and British militaries have held a joint table exercise on the evacuation of nationals. They exchanged their experiences, and conducted table exercises on evacuation operations.
Forty-five senior representatives from China and the United Kingdom exchanged their views and ideas on building a smooth mechanism for joint nationals evacuation operations.
"Through today's tabletop exercise and discussions, the two sides have reached consensus on nationals evacuation, which will lay a solid foundation for conducting joint evacuation operations in the future. It helps deepen our practical cooperation in the area of non-traditional security issues," said Lu Ming, deputy president of Naval Command College of PLA.
China and the UK have gained substantial experience in evacuating their overseas nationals in recent years. Both countries conducted successful operations in Lebanon in 2006, Libya in 2011, and Yemen in 2015. So there is a lot of common ground for cooperation.
The tabletop exercise is part of the agreements reached during President Xi Jinping's state visit to the UK in October last year. It is regarded as one of the stepping stones for the two countries to deepen cooperation in non-combat military operations.
But challenges remain because a joint evacuation operation requires a joint general command to work on task assignment, coordination, and action plans for navies, air forces, and special troops.
That is why experts say when it comes to joint moves, an in-depth coalition on top level decision making and logistic support will be needed. But at least for now, the two countries have hit the launch button on exploring a cooperation mechanism for joint evacuation operations in the future.
