Colonel Roy Speaks, the US senior facilitator, said he was excited to see the interactions between US and Chinese soldiers, particularly at the practical field exchange site, where the PLA soldiers and US soldiers worked together to learn different ways to extract victims in a disaster area and get them to safety.

"They utilized each other's knowledge and experience," he said. "That became a common bond between what the PLA soldiers and the American soldiers were doing, and that's the most rewarding thing for me."