"Sino-British maritime drill is a complete success and Chinese navy is very professional," said French deputy navy attache Alexis Brossouet Sunday in Beijing.

Brossouet made the remarks after observing performances of Chinese and British navies in Sunday's Sino-British maritime exercise. Altogether 15 navy attaches from 15 countries witnessed the exercise on the Chinese guided missile destroyer "Harbin".

Brossouet, who has participated in the Sino-French maritime drills last March, said he spent several years of his Childhood inChina, and nowadays both Chinese economy and Chinese navy make rapid progress.

One of the purposes of port calls by warships is for exchanges with foreign counterparts with joint maritime drills as an important means, he said.

China has involved more in international peacekeeping efforts, he said, perhaps in one day the Chinese navy will also join in thepeacekeeping efforts, thus military exercises is important for coordination of the armed forces of different countries, he said.

"Today China and Britain have made their first step of militaryexercises and we expect more complicated ones with Chinese counterparts in the future," he said.

Jeff Thompson, deputy defense attache from Australia, said he is lucky to be one of the first foreign navy attaches to witness military drills between China and other countries.

"Ocean is our common boundary and world navies have lots of exchanging programs," he said. Today's drills proved breathing-taking progress Chinese navy has made, he said, who has began to study Chinese navy ten years ago.

US deputy navy attache Kevin Ketchmark, who has just taken his post in China two weeks ago, said Chinese and British navies have cooperated very well during their exercises and the Chinese side has finished their tasks according to the plan almost perfectly.

To invite foreign attaches to observe is conducive to promotingmutual understanding of different armed forces, he said.

Prior to the drills, Chinese side has briefed the navy attachesabout the exercises plan. Carsten Klenke Germany navy attach said "the plan for Sino-British drill is standard."

"During our maritime drills with foreign counterparts, we usually follow the same procedures," he said.

Japanese navy attache B. Ohara, a former pilot, highly praised Chinese pilot who has played a main role in Sino-British search and rescue exercise.

After the exercise concluded, Chinese expert gave an introduction to the attaches on the role of Chinese navy in searchand rescue efforts in China as well as their international obligations at sea.

Other attaches are from Russia, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Algeria, Tanzania, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Republic of Korea.