"During the meeting scheduled Tuesday with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov the two will raise the topics of continuing the development of bilateral relations in the military domain and in technical and military cooperation," a Russian defense ministry spokesman was quoted as saying.

Military delegations from the two countries are due to travel later to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, ITAR-TASS said.

Sino-Russian military maneuvers carried out in the Russian Far East and in China August 18-25 enabled Russia to showcase military hardware that China may want to purchase.

Cao and Ivanov met for breakfast in the east Chinese port city of Qingdao on August 24 as nearly 10,000 service personnel from the two sides simulated various war scenarios.

The exercises were the first major land, sea and air war games jointly carried out by the two military heavyweights and former Cold War foes.

Since the early 1990s Russia has supplied 85 percent of China's arms imports, representing a turnover of three billion dollars (2.4 billion euros) a year, according to the Pentagon.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.