Drill report 'surprises' Chinese govt

China expressed surprise about reports India had planned a secret military exercise targeting Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

India's Hindustan Times reported last week that the Indian army had on March 25 concluded a three-day military exercise codenamed Divine Matrix, based on the assumption a "nuclear-armed China will attack India before 2017".

It said that before the exercise, the Indian military spent six months studying various hypothetical scenarios of war with Beijing and concluded: "China would rely on information warfare to bring India down on its knees before launching an offensive."