Chinese army deploys howitzers in Tibet

BEIJING: China has equipped its armed forces in Tibet - which has a long border with India - with vehicle-mounted howitzers to improve “combat capability in high altitudes”, reports sourced from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said on Tuesday.

The same equipment was used by an artillery brigade during the 73-day India-China standoff at Doklam, a media report said, indicating that since then it has been inducted in high-altitude brigades on a wider scale in the border areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

The deployment comes at a time when China’s land border issues - with India and Bhutan still remain unresolved and Beijing is “challenged by pro-Tibet independence forces and terrorists,” an analyst told the state media.

The weapon is said to be a new addition in the arsenal of the ground forces, known as PLAGF. The PLAGF released the information on social media, saying the PLA in the Tibet Military Command was equipped with the new howitzers, which Chinese military analysts said are supposedly PLC-181 vehiclemounted howitzers.

Military expert Song Zhongping told the tabloid Global Times the howitzers have a 52-calibre cannon with a range of over 50km and can shoot laserguided, satellite-guided projectiles.

“It will boost the high-altitude combat capability of the PLA in Tibet,” Song told Global Times.

“As part of military training in 2019, an artillery brigade in the Tibet Military Command ordered soldiers to take part in a military skills competition at a training ground on the QinghaiTibet Plateau 3,700m above sea level,” the report said.

Video footage from China News Service on Sunday shows soldiers engaged in military boxing, standstill shooting and firing in motion drills, as well as assembling guns on snowfields.

The development comes within days of Chinese President Xi Jinping urging the armed forces to be ready for “combat” and “unexpected crisis”.