China and Malaysia will hold their first-ever joint military exercises next year, the Southeast Asian nation's defence minister said Wednesday, despite their rival claims to the tense South China Sea. The announcement by Hishammuddin Hussein, who is in Beijing to meet Chinese military leaders, follows a visit to Kuala Lumpur earlier this month by China's President Xi Jinping, in which the two countries pledged closer ties.
"Malaysia and China are expected to launch our first joint exercise in 2014 after the Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Co-operation was signed in 2005," Hishammuddin said in a statement sent to AFP. The statement gave no details on the planned drills such as their location, scale, or which military branches would be involved. A Malaysian defence ministry official confirmed they would be the first-ever drills between the two countries' armed forces. Hishammuddin, who met his counterpart General Chang Wanquan in China, also said he invited Chang to visit the Malaysian naval base of Mawilla 2 in the South China Sea on the island of Borneo.