China offers Indonesia defense cooperation: Official

China has offered to cooperate with Indonesia in the defense sector under the umbrella of a collective committee, an official said.

China’s Defense Minister Liang Guanglie met with Vice President Boediono in the latter’s office in Jakarta on Friday.

Deputy secretary for the Vice President in political matters, Dewi Fortuna Anwar, said both countries would also follow up on the trading of military officers.

“Trading officers includes training together for piloting Sukhoi battle aircraft,” she said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Dewi said that Liang was invited by Indonesian Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro to increase bilateral cooperation between the two countries. Liang also came at the informal invitation of ASEAN defense ministers.

The meeting with the ASEAN defense ministers leaned more towards information sharing, she said.
 
“[The meeting] was informal…it was non-binding, it talked about the latest security issues such as Somalian piracy,” Dewi said.