Military exercise should not be misinterpreted

Despite some wild speculation, China's upcoming joint military exercise with Russia and Mongolia is nothing untoward.

It has become a routine practice for China and Russia to hold smaller scale military exercises, and the two neighbors have also regularly participated in and led multilateral drills under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in recent years.

The planned drills scheduled for Sept 11-15 are simply on a larger scale than usual. Codenamed Vostok-2018, or East-2018, the exercise will reportedly involve almost 300,000 troops and more than 1,000 military aircraft, with China sending about 3,200 troops, more than 900 pieces of military hardware and a combined total of 30 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.