Aman Youyi Exercise hits bull's eye in M'sia-China military diplomacy

DENGKIL, Nov 25 (Bernama) — The Aman Youyi Exercise (Peace Friendship 2016), a joint military exercise involving the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) and Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has hit bull's eye in strengthening military diplomacy between the two countries.
MAF's Joint Forces Commander Lt Jen Datuk Fadzil Mokhtar described the five-day military exercise themed, 'Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR)' which involved 410 MAF personnel, PLA and 10 observers from the Royal Thai Armed Forces. as "fruitful and a great success".
"By working together, exchanging ideas, expertise and experiences in conducting such operation, formulating a set of standard operating procedures (SOP) and other aspects has enabled us to understand each other better.
"It also enhances capacity to deal with disaster in the region. Disaster knows no boundaries and does not distinguish nationality.
"It (can) hit anywhere. Therefore, multilateral response is more effective, rather than (a response coming from) a country working alone," he said at a joint media conference after the closing ceremony of the Aman Youyi Exercise at the Payah Indah Wetlands here.
Also present were Director of Strategic and Campaign Training Bureau of the Joint Staff Department of Centre Military Committee, who is also PLA chief of delegation, Major General Li Weiya, and Royal Thai Armed Forces' Joint and Combined Exercise Planning Office Director, Major General Thitichai Tiantong.
The five-day exercise involved activities such as Staff Exercise (STAFFEX), jungle survival and MAF combat, while PLA demonstrated Close Quarter Shooting and Unarmed Combat.
Fadzil thanked the Royal Thai Armed Forces observers for taking part in the joint exercise to assess the objective of the programme.
"That is a good start for the exercise to expand (to other countries) eventually,” he noted.
On his expectation for future joint exercise, Fadzil hoped HADR would be the theme for future exercises and allow interaction across all levels.
Meanwhile, Li said the joint exercise served as a very effective platform to boost defence cooperation between Malaysia and China, besides enhancing friendship between the two countries to greater heights.
"The exercise also promotes peace and stability in the region. We are looking forward to conducting multilevel joint exercises, including the Malaysian and Thai Armed Forces in future,” he said, adding that it needed further discussion.
On his part, Thitichai described the joint military exercise between Malaysia and China as a great success as it achieved the goal, reflective of its name 'Aman (peace) and Youyi (friendship)'.
"It is a good platform with many dimensions. We learned and experienced from the joint exercise on HADR,” he said. — Bernama