China declares Vostok 2018 war games a success as troops are ‘toughened up for battle’

China’s participation in Russia’s largest military exercise since the cold war was a “political and strategic” success, the People’s Liberation Army said on Monday, as Moscow announced it would hold similarly large-scale drills every five years.

The Northern Theatre Command, the Chinese military region that borders Russia, said in an online statement that Vostok 2018 showed the “determination to cooperate” of the troops taking part and that Chinese officers had been “toughened up for battle”.

The command will build on the “experience of decision making, coordination and joint action” gained during the exercise and continue to “boost the troops’ overseas combat capabilities and readiness”, it said on its official social media account.

Russia and China said before the start of the exercise – which also included Mongolia – that its aim was to boost the counter-attacking capabilities of their militaries and enhance cooperation between the nations.

All of the Chinese troops that took part in the drills, which started on September 11 and ran for seven days, had now returned home, the command’s statement said.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Sunday that large-scale exercises were the only way to measure the effectiveness of the country’s massive spending on its armed forces.

“As we spend such large amounts of money on the army and the navy, we need to see where we are going and be sure that everything is all right,” state news agency TASS quoted him as saying.