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The Japanese government is reportedly worried about the first-ever joint Sino-Russian military exercises to be held from Thursday to Aug. 25 because they could be preparations for controlling an emergency on the Korean Peninsula, a newspaper reported Wednesday. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun quoted a high-ranking Japanese defense official as saying the exercise would show "whether the Chinese and Russian armies are capable of bringing North Korea under control before allied South Korean and U.S. forces."
The official claimed airborne and amphibious units at the center of the Sino-Russian war games would also constitute ˇ°the operational axisˇ± to prevent an advance of North Korea by South Korea and the U.S.
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A Soviet-built Tu-22M3 'Backfire' bomber
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The paper said the Chinese and Russians regarded North Korea as a buffer zone between them and South Korea, the U.S. and Japan - the so-called Southern Alliance in Cold War terms -- saying Beijing and Moscow would like to see that situation continue. But in case of a regime collapse in Pyongyang they would need to block an advance of the North by South Korea and the U.S. to buy time to set up a new government that could control North Korea.
The daily said the Russian military had recently strengthened Northeast Asia activities.
It cited observers as claiming an exercise in June last year that saw Russia rush a motorized rifle brigade from the west to the Far Eastern Military District was a sign that Moscow was ready to back its weight in the region with military might.
The paper pointed to the possibility that after the exercise, Russia may sell to China advanced weapons like the midrange Tu22M "Backfire" bomber. The Backfire, a supersonic bomber capable of carrying nuclear warheads, was an aircraft much feared by Japanese and European defense establishments during the Cold War.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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