Bangkok, December 03: Thailand has agreed to conduct joint war games with China for the first time next year with the US invited as an observer, media reports said Thursday.
The joint games, to be held at a still unspecified date in early 2010, were agreed to “in principle” Wednesday during a visit by Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie, the Bangkok Post reported.
Liang reportedly proposed military exercises on the scale of Cobra Gold – Thailand’s joint war games staged in the kingdom with the US military on an annual basis – but the Thai side opted for a much smaller operation.
“We initially want to cover only 50 to 100 soldiers,” Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwon told the Bangkok Post. “This will be the first step as Thailand and the US took more than 20 years to develop their joint exercise to the Cobra Gold scale,” Prawit said.
He added that Thailand had turned down an offer by China to pay for a much larger-scale joint exercise.
The US, Thailand’s main military ally and the prime security-keeper in South-East Asia, is likely to be concerned about China’s war-games initiative in Thailand.
“The US may be concerned but it should understand Thailand,” Prawit said. “Military charges d’affaires from ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) and the US will be invited to observe the joint exercises with China to allay concerns,” he added.
–Agencies