AP, Oregon :
A man lay on the grass, shivering beneath his bloodstained T-shirt as Chinese military doctors and U.S. Army medics hovered over him, applying a splint and an IV. Troops nearby prepared to evacuate the injured.
On a pine-studded base along the Oregon coast, military units from two seemingly unlikely partners were carrying out a joint response to a natural disaster. It was only a drill, but the roughly 100 soldiers from China and the U.S. and their top commanders are ready to use what they learned in a real disaster, no matter the state of relations between the nations.
“The tensions that happen really don’t impact this, because we’ve found an area of common interest: that’s saving lives and disaster response and humanitarian assistance,” Gen. Robert Brown, commander of Hawaii-based U.S. Army Pacific, told reporters Sunday, the closing day of the exercise.
Washington and Beijing are striving to foster military ties to avoid a confrontation and potentially work together where their interests don’t collide.
A man lay on the grass, shivering beneath his bloodstained T-shirt as Chinese military doctors and U.S. Army medics hovered over him, applying a splint and an IV. Troops nearby prepared to evacuate the injured.
On a pine-studded base along the Oregon coast, military units from two seemingly unlikely partners were carrying out a joint response to a natural disaster. It was only a drill, but the roughly 100 soldiers from China and the U.S. and their top commanders are ready to use what they learned in a real disaster, no matter the state of relations between the nations.
“The tensions that happen really don’t impact this, because we’ve found an area of common interest: that’s saving lives and disaster response and humanitarian assistance,” Gen. Robert Brown, commander of Hawaii-based U.S. Army Pacific, told reporters Sunday, the closing day of the exercise.
Washington and Beijing are striving to foster military ties to avoid a confrontation and potentially work together where their interests don’t collide.
