Critical Story Ignored by US Media: Chinese and Russian Armies to Hold Joint Exercises

The most striking result of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's four-day visit to China this week was the agreement announced Monday to hold "substantial military exercises on Chinese territory in 2005" (quote from Russia's Interfax news agency). This was Ivanov's second trip to Beijing this year, and Chinese President Hu Jintao used the occasion to assert, "Sino-Russian strategic coordination has attained an unprecedentedly high level." The agreement to hold joint exercises is, in fact, unprecedented, and Hu went on to express satisfaction at the growth in relations between the two armies. Not that you would know any of this from our lethargic press. The Chinese and Russian news services played up the story, and AP and Reuters correspondents promptly filed detailed reports from Beijing. But most U.S. print media--The Washington Post, for example--ignored the story. The New York Times Tuesday cut it down to two sentences tacked onto the end of a roundup titled "World Briefing" on page A6. Nevertheless, it is a highly significant development, pointing out how major regional powers are reacting to the policy and actions of what they perceive to be the world's big bully.

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