Amid standoff, PLA live-fire drills in Tibet
Chinese signal to India
China’s military said on Monday it had conducted live-fire 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 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 like rapid deployment, multi-unit joint strike and anti-aircraft defence, the staterun 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
The 11-hour-long live-fire exercises were conducted at an altitude of 5,000 meters on the plateau in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region
plateau mountain brigades. The PLA Tibet command guards the Line of Actual Control of the India-China border along several sections linking the mountainous Tibetan region.
Analysts believe the drills are an apparent attempt by the military to reassure the Chinese public about the combat readiness of its troops. “Showing an opponent that you are combat ready is more likely to prevent an actual battle,” said Wang Dehua, a South Asia studies expert at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.
Broadcasting the drill on CCTV was also likely designed to keep the public happy, he said. “It could also reassure the Chinese people that a strong PLA force is there, capable and determined to defend Chinese territory,” Wang told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.
The CCTV report did not disclose the location
Continued from Page 1 of the drills but said the brigade responsible for frontline combat missions has long been stationed around the middle and lower reaches of the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Zangbo in Chinese) river. The Brahmaputra flows into India from the Arunachal Pradesh border.
“The PLA wanted to demonstrate it could easily overpower its Indian counterparts,” Beijing-based military commentator Zhou Chenming told the Post.
The Chinese force that took part in the drill is stationed in the Lizhi region of eastern Tibet, close to the stand-off, the Post said. India has nearly 200,000 troops in the areas it disputes with China, outnumbering Chinese forces by as much as 15 or 20 to one, it said. However, China has a clear advantage in terms of speed of movement, firepower, and logistics, Mr Zhou said. The drills included the quick deployment of troops and different military units working together on joint attacks. Video posted online showed soldiers using anti-tank grenades and missiles against bunkers and howitzers for artillery coverage.
The video also showed radar units identifying enemy aircraft and soldiers using anti-aircraft artillery to destroy targets, the report said. Separately, Tibet’s mobile communications agency held a drill on July 10 in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, where members of the agency practised setting up a temporary network to secure communications in an emergency.
Earlier reports had said the PLA units exercised in Tibet with several modern weapon systems, including a new light battle tank being manufactured by China.