They are allowing high ranking Chinese Army (PLA) observers to watch this exercise, and that Venezuelans may also be present.
Russians and Chinese coming to for anti-terror drill in Colorado.
Something to keep in mind....
One of the criticisms of John Milius's scenarization in Red Dawn, and a "proof" of the film's "impossibility", was that the forces depicted were very thin, and the premise of invasion from Mexico blinked the probability that there would have to have been a war in Mexico first (that we lost) for the Cubans and Russians and their allies to have reached their jumping-off points.
Re the "thinness" of the invasion force, the Chinese could certainly make that go away, even if the Russians didn't.
And oh, by the way, the Chinese already have latent control of the Panama Canal, and a substantial force-in-being of "workers" down there.