EXC: The director of Russia’s Irkutsk anti-plague institute was in CHINA just weeks ago for a “cross-border infectious disease” exercise that simulated responses to imported PLAGUE and “Disease X.” About five weeks later, an employee of his institute was dead, with nearly 200 contacts reportedly placed under medical observation amid suspected-plague reports. Chinese government reporting names director Sergey Balakhonov as attending and speaking at the August 24–27 exercise in Fuyuan. The Chinese exercise involved the following: • A scenario involving plague arriving from abroad. • A hypothetical emerging tick-borne disease. • Chinese and Russian experts rehearsing outbreak notifications, joint risk assessments, and coordinated control measures. • Nineteen emergency teams, more than 300 personnel, and over 40 emergency vehicles. And the institute’s Chinese partnerships go back years. China’s official Inner Mongolia Yearbook records that regional inspection and quarantine authorities signed scientific-research cooperation agreements with the Irkutsk plague institute in 2014. A Russian government document lists additional cooperation planned for 2020–2021 with the Medical Department of Manzhouli Customs: joint surveys concerning plague and other rodent-borne infections, plus tick-borne disease research.