But the negotiations were far from a bed of roses. China wanted the exercises - the first ever between the two countries - to be held in its southwestern Zhejiang province near the island of Taiwan, the Moscow newspaper Kommersant reported Thursday.

The political message of holding the exercises there would have been dramatically clear: Russia would be prepared to support China in an eventual military confrontation with the United States over the island whose president, Chen Shui-bian, has been moving toward full legal independence from the mainland.

"Beijing is trying to use Russia as an additional lever of pressure on the disobedient island to show it that its policy is also causing dissatisfaction in Russia, from which the Taiwanese are expecting assistance in their dialogue with Beijing and bid to join the WTO (World Trade Organization) and the U.N.," Kommersant said.

But that was too much for the cautious Russians. "A joint exercise in this area would look too provocative and trigger a strong reaction not only from Taiwan but also America and Japan, which recently included the island in the zone of their common strategic interests," Kommersant said.

Instead, the Russians wanted the exercises to be held in China's vast northwestern Xinjiang province in the heart of Central Asia.

From the point of view of the exercises' ostensible purpose - to coordinate the military of the two giant nations in the struggle against international terrorism - this made more sense.

The Russians are deeply embroiled in the struggle to hold back the threat of Islamist extremism in the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, especially Tajikistan.

And China is very sensitive about the threat it might stir up among Xinjiang's indigenous Muslim Uigur people. But possibly for that very reason, they did not want to draw attention to the area and flatly rejected the Russian proposal, too.

Eventually, both sides agreed that the exercises this fall, to be code-named Commonwealth 2005, would be held in the Shangdong peninsula on China's northeast coast along the shores of the Yellow Sea.

Even then, the Chinese tried to change the format of the exercise with proposals to enlarge the contingents with marines and Pacific Fleet warships. Marine landings to seize the area would be practiced during the "anti-terrorist" exercise.

And just by agreeing to hold the exercises at all, Russia "will inevitably cause a furor in America, Japan and Taiwan, but a refusal will spoil relations with China," Kommersant pointedly noted.

Indeed, the idea of holding the exercises came from the Russian side. And the importance with which the Kremlin regards them was reflected in the fact that Baluyevsky's first trip abroad after taking up his current position in July was to finalize them.

In Beijing, the Russian general said developing a strategic cooperative partnership with China was one of Russia's priorities. He told his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie during a meeting Thursday Russia was willing to work with China to strengthen bilateral ties, the official China Daily reported.

The exercises would be on a considerably larger scale than simple anti-terrorist coordination. They would reportedly involve the Russian and Chinese armies, navies and air forces as well as submarines.

Russia would dispatch an airborne company, long-range aircraft and frontline fighters, a marine unit and a group of warships of the Pacific Fleet.

"The initial plans were to practice operational teamwork in combating terrorism during the exercise. However, Beijing, skillfully changing the format of the exercise, has tried to reorient the two countries' armies to practicing an invasion of Taiwan," RIA-Novosti said.

The Russians have put a more cautious and defensive interpretation on the whole business. The task of the exercise, said the Russian Defense Ministry, is to train in joint operation a peacekeeping operation of the mobile forces of Russia and China, which implies "anti-terrorist" aspects.

A Russian military official told the China Daily last week that the exercise should help both sides coordinate the fight against "terrorism."

He has come to China with "major powers delegated (to me) by the defense minister," the general said. "We have things to discuss and offer to our Chinese colleagues in military-technical cooperation and other spheres."

Still, as analyst Sergei Blagov commented in a study for the Eurasia Daily Monitor of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, "The planned joint war games seemingly led Russia into a trap. The drill is likely to spark concerns in Washington and Tokyo, while refusal to hold the exercises could have negative repercussions for (Russia's) ties to Beijing."

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