Amid border standoff, China conducts live-fire drill in Tibet

China’s military on Monday said it has conducted livefire exercises in the remote mountainous Tibet region to test its strike capability on plateaus, amid the standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in the Doklam area in the Sikkim sector.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted the 11hour long live-fire exercises at an altitude of 5,000 meters on the plateau in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, aimed at improving the combat capability on such locations, the military said.

The exercise was conducted by a ground combat brigade of the PLA Tibet Regional Command this month and involved scenarios such as rapid deployment, multiunit joint strike and anti-aircraft defense, state-run China Daily quoted a PLA press release as saying.

The exercise effectively tested the brigade’s joint strike capability on plateaus, according to the press release.

The brigade that conducted the drills was from the PLA’s Tibet Military Command and is one of China’s two plateau mountain brigades.

The PLA Tibet command guards the Line of Actual Control (LAC) of the IndiaChina border along several sections connecting the mountainous Tibetan region.

According to the CCTV report, the brigade has long been stationed around the middle and lower reaches of the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Zangbo in Chinese) River which flows into India and Bangladesh. The brigade is responsible for frontline combat missions.

The drills included the quick deployment of troops and different military units working together on joint attacks.