The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

land, India, the United States, France, Pakistan, and
several Central Asian countries. 62 The PLA Navy has
also been conducting combined search and rescue exercises
(SAREXs) at home and abroad and hosted an
international fleet review in April 2009 to celebrate its
60th anniversary.
Combined Exercises: Manifestations of Military Alliances
or Partnerships? China continues to profess an
aversion to alliances yet increasingly engages in alliance-type
activities with foreign countries. It appears
to want the benefits of a military alliance without the
responsibility.
China has consistently stated that its growing
military cooperation with foreign countries, including
combined exercises, is a partnership not an alliance.
An alliance can be defined as “the relationship that
results from a formal agreement (e.g., treaty) between
two or more nations for broad, long-term objectives
that further the common interests of the members,” or
as “a union to promote common interests.” 63 China’s
aversion to alliances is based in no small part on the
fact that it strongly associates them with Cold War diplomacy.
In 1998, China’s Defense White Paper stated,
“History has proved that the concepts and systems
of security with military alliances as the basis and
increasing military might as the means could not be
conducive to peace during the Cold War.” 64
Today, the closest that China comes to having an
alliance is the SCO, which was created in 2001 on the
basis of the 1996 Shanghai Five organization. According
to China’s 2002 Defense White Paper, “The Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) has made outstanding
progress in building mutual trust and developing
a state-to-state relationship based on partnership rather
than alliance, as well as in anti-terrorism coopera-
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