Reporter's Notebook: Let the Banner of Peace and Friendship Fly High

Reporter's Notebook: Let the Banner of Peace and Friendship Fly High

By Xinhua News Agency reporters Li Bingxuan and Li Jie

Like the officers and soldiers participating in the exercise, the reporters rose very early. The China-Russia "Maritime Joint-2026" joint exercise will draw to a close today.

Stepping out of the cabin and standing on the stern deck of the Kaifeng, the reporters found themselves facing an "old acquaintance" of China-Russia maritime joint exercises — the Russian Pacific Fleet's Varyag missile cruiser. The sea breeze blew, and the national flags of China and Russia, hanging from the main masts of the two warships, fluttered in the wind.

Kaifeng crew member Liu Pintao and his comrades exchanged their dark navy-blue combat uniforms for white dress uniforms today, preparing to perform the naval-style side-party ceremony (站坡礼).

The military band had already taken position at the pier. Just as at the welcoming ceremony, woodwind player Chen Changyu and his comrades were ready to perform for the closing send-off ceremony.

Participating in the China-Russia "Maritime Joint" series of exercises in full for the first time, the reporters had been pursuing an answer to one question since opening day: what can the China-Russia maritime joint exercises bring to the People's Navy?

Descending the gangway and stepping onto the stone-paved surface of a naval pier in Qingdao, watching the naval vessels of China and Russia gathered around this ninety-year-old pier, the reporters could not help but be moved by a flood of feelings.

It has witnessed the humiliation of China's having a sea but no defense (有海无防) in the modern era, and it has also witnessed the People's Navy take its first faltering steps and advance, step by step, from weakness to strength.

During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, faced with invading Japanese forces, Chinese warships collectively scuttled themselves outside Qingdao harbor to prevent their use by the enemy.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, four Type 07 destroyers purchased from the Soviet Union were stationed here, and the People's Navy possessed its own destroyer force for the first time. From that point on, the silhouettes of an ever-growing number of domestically produced vessels appeared alongside the pier.

In the early twenty-first century, the Qingdao ship formation cast off its lines and set sail from here, and the People's Navy carved the wake of the Chinese nation's first circumnavigation of the globe in history. Foreign military visits, joint military exercises, multinational naval activities, ship open-house events — this place gradually became a stage from which the Chinese Navy steps onto the world and a window through which people come to understand the Chinese Navy.

Maintaining maritime security and preserving regional peace and stability cannot be achieved without a powerful navy, and building a powerful navy is not accomplished overnight — it must be walked out one step at a time.

The Kaifeng, which has been in commission for just five years, participated in the China-Russia maritime joint exercise for the first time while serving as the Chinese side's command ship. This is precisely the latest footnote on the Chinese Navy's road of growth.

Like most of the Kaifeng's officers and soldiers, this was also Liu Pintao's first time participating in a joint exercise. Recalling scene after scene from the exercise, he could not conceal his excitement: "Our main gun fired on a surface target and successfully struck a high-speed moving maritime target." At the outset of his military career, to be able to exchange and learn with foreign militaries on an international stage in a live-force, live-fire exercise — Liu Pintao, born in 2001, is undoubtedly fortunate.

Serving as a Russian observer, Navy Captain Ilya, deputy commanding officer of the Russian Navy's Varyag missile cruiser, boarded the Kaifeng and participated throughout the entire maritime-phase exercise alongside Chinese officers and soldiers. During rest periods, everyone ate self-made ice cream from the ship's galley while chatting about China and the Chinese Navy as he saw them. He was unstinting in his praise for the professionalism of the Chinese participating personnel: "The Chinese side's performance deserves a perfect score — this is said in all honesty."

If the joint exercise of surface vessels on the same stage is a rare platform for professional exchange between the two militaries, then the joint submarine rescue operation is the concentrated embodiment of the friendship and mutual trust between the two sides.

As an important subject of the maritime phase of this joint exercise, the joint submarine rescue operation carries far greater weight than an ordinary tactical exercise. Li Yi, a sailor aboard the submarine rescue ship Yangchenghu, told reporters that conducting rescue operations on their own country's submarines is a common subject in their routine training. "But this time, both sides rescued each other's submarines," Li Yi said, adding that this truly reflects the character of submarine rescue as a humanitarian rescue subject recognized by navies worldwide.

This tacit understanding and trust that transcends national boundaries was not formed overnight, but was worked out and accumulated step by step over more than a decade.

For Zhao Mengyun, a researcher at the Naval Research Institute, "Maritime Joint" has become a defining mark of her military career. Since 2012, she has participated in all twelve exercises in the China-Russia "Maritime Joint" series.

What particular impressions did she have this year? In response to the reporters' question, she described one detail.

During the joint planning phase, staff officers from both sides gathered around nautical charts and went through the details of each exercise subject item by item. Many tactical terms had barely been spoken before the other side pointed to the corresponding position on the chart and nodded in understanding. "The interpreters were more often filling in parameter details than translating sentence by sentence. This tacit understanding that requires little to be said is the product of more than ten joint exercises, and the trust accumulated through years of exchanges between the two militaries," Zhao Mengyun said.

As one blast of the ship's whistle after another sounded, the Chinese and Russian participating vessels successively cast off their lines and set sail, departing Qingdao.

As the Chinese side's chief director said in an interview with reporters: "The current international security situation is complex and volatile. Against this backdrop, organizing and conducting the China-Russia 'Maritime Joint-2026' joint exercise carries important practical significance for deepening defense cooperation between the two countries and safeguarding regional peace and stability."

Standing on the stern and looking back, the stone paving of the old pier remains as it was, and the waves on the sea surface remain as they were. Fourteen years have passed in the blink of an eye, and the steps of the Chinese and Russian navies joining hands to safeguard peace have moved ever forward.

The sea wind blows strong, and the national flags of China and Russia snap and flutter. The banner of peace and friendship, following in the wake of the two countries' navies, flies high across the vast expanse of the sea.

(Xinhua News Agency, Qingdao, July 13)