The Chinese armed forces will have the chance next month to learn from Russia’s combat experience in Syria when PLA personnel take part in Moscow’s biggest war games in decades, Chinese military sources and observers said.

Russia is preparing to mount Vostok 2018, what it says will be an “unprecedented military exercise” involving almost 300,000 troops and 1,000 aircraft. The war games are billed as the country’s biggest since 1981, when as many as 150,000 Soviet Army personnel were mobilised.

Collin Koh, a research fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the appearance of the Chinese and Russian troops at the war games might revive memories of the cold war, but such a “veritable strategic signal” to the West would not roll back the US and its allies’ plans in the region.