(TibetanReview.net, Sep21’21) – With a view apparently to keep up the pressure on India, China continues to hold a variety of military exercises in occupied Tibet along the Himalayan border region and give stellar media reports about their success. In yet another report, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China has said it has been ramping up military exercises including night drills in the high-altitude areas in the Xinjiang Military District, which faces India.
The PLA’s Western Theatre Command, which is responsible for the entire border with India, has “introduced more night drills for units stationed near the Himalayan border as it seeks to familiarise its troops with new-generation weapons and equipment,” reported The South China Morning Post newspaper Sep 19, citing the official PLA Daily.
The report quoted Yang Yang, a company commander, as saying, “We have revised our schedules and demanded soldiers meet higher standards for high-altitude training as we need to deal with a harsher battlefield environment amid increasing challenges in the peripheral areas.”
Yang has also said that mechanised force had been crossing the snowy highlands without lights and practising nighttime live-fire machine gun drills.
“Since the start of the autumn, several forces in the Xinjiang military district have been carrying out night battle drills at altitudes of around 5,000 metre (16,400 feet),” he has said.
The report also said the PLA’s new Type PHL-11 truck-mounted self-propelled 122mm multiple system rocket launchers had been deployed in the area and were being used for precision strike drills.
Last month, PLA’s Tibet military command conducted large-scale joint exercises —Snowfield Duty-2021 — in the Tibetan plateau region. Carried out at an elevation of 4,500 metre, it involved ten PLA brigades and regiments and was again reported to include the latest weapons and equipment.
The increased military exercises come after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Tibet in July, noted a cnbctv18.com news report Sep 21.