China carries out high-altitude military drill in Tibet
China’s armed forces recently took part in a “record-breaking” high-altitude drill in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) focusing on combat training, the Chinese defence ministry said on Thursday.
Organised by the Tibet Military Region, the training simulated battle situations that required integrated operations or joint training between different units of the troops deployed in the region.
The ministry added that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has carried out more than 100 tactical exercises this year in which the quantity of ammunition had significantly increased.
Taiwan foreign minister Joseph Wu has warned that the self-ruled island “needs to prepare” for a possible military conflict with China. In an interview with CNN, Wu said that the government of Taiwan cannot take any chances, given China’s unwillingness to renounce the use of force and frequent military exercises around the island.
The warning comes a week after the island reported the largest daily incursion by the Chinese air force as they entered Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ). The incursion involved 14 J-16 and six J-11 fighters, as well as four H-6 bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons, and anti-submarine, electronic warfare and early warning aircraft, as per Taiwan’s defence ministry.
The latest incursion is the largest since the defence ministry began regularly reporting PLA activities in Taiwan’s ADIZ last year. The previous record was of 25 aircraft reported on April 12, 2021. In the past, China has described such missions as necessary to protect the country’s sovereignty and to deal with “collusion” between Taiwan and the United States.
The Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force are separately participating in joint exercises with the sword arm of the US Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean, south of Thiruvananthapuram.
Interestingly, the Indo-US military exercise comes a month after China and Pakistan conducted an air force-level joint military exercise in Tibet to target warships, launch land attacks from sea and sharpen air-defence skills.