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Heavy fighters of the PLA cruised over the Himalayan ranges with live ammunition. The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been concentrating on preparing itself for a potential conflict situation especially in the high-altitude areas. In a related development, the official mouthpiece of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reported that heavy fighters of the PLA cruised over the Himalayan ranges with live ammunition in September 2012. The third-generation heavy fighters of the Chinese Air Force practised complex drills and subsequently monitored the fighter pilots' body response to the high altitude terrain — thus providing further credence to China's plans of preparedness for high-altitude war.
The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) is circumspectly working towards developing significant air space denial capability. In reference to this, a logistics exercise in August 2010 involving the Qinghai-Tibet railway line marked the first PLAAF use of the railway for military purposes, with the Military Transportation Department of the PLAAF Logistics Department overseeing the movement of "combat readiness materials" to Tibet. This would seem to reflect a growing PLAAF role in maintaining security along the Sino-Indian border in the Tibetan area.
The year 2012 has witnessed exceptional PLAAF activity on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, wherein in March 2012, the PLAAF of the Chengdu Military Area Command held a live ammunition drill, during which it carried out surgical strikes at night by testing the multi-role J-10 fighter jets, in a "first operation of its kind". China's state-controlled media reported that the ground crew of the J-10 regiment fuelled the fighters and loaded ammunition on the 3,500-metre-high plateau at temperatures below -20 degree Celsius. The J-10 fighters attacked targets with conventional as well as laser-guided bombs. The J-10 fighter was initially designed as an air superiority fighter, focusing on air combat and interception capability. The J-10 fighters made the first flight during the Chinese Lunar New Year on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in January 2012 with a typical air combat patrol payload, namely two mid-range air-to-air missiles, two short-range air-to-air missiles, and three external fuel tanks.
Following conduct of its first live military exercise in Tibet in 2010, the PLA for the first time rehearsed capture of mountain passes at heights beyond 5,000 metres in November 2011 with the help of armoured vehicles and airborne troops. The Chinese Ministry of Defence made this claim in an official report, which described the exercise as a "challenge" since it was being conducted on a plateau with an elevation of more than 4,500 metres. The exercise was depicted as the "first joint actual-troop drill of the PLA air and ground troops under information-based conditions in frigid area with a high altitude". The joint drill involved the Chinese Air Force, ground troops, armoured columns and a range of support entities. The Chinese Defence Ministry's report provided rare details of the exercise, stating that the new type warplanes of the PLA Air Force conducted accurate strikes at the targets.
In October 2010, the PLA conducted its first Group Army-level joint air-land exercise (shimingxingdong). The primary participants from Beijing, Lanzhou, and Chengdu Military Region (opposite India's northeastern theatre) practised manoeuvre, ground-air coordination, and long-distance mobilisation via military and commercial assets as they transited between military regions.
China's long-term, comprehensive military modernisation campaign is aimed at improving the PLA's capacity to conduct high-intensity, regional military operations ¯ anti-access and area denial operations. The 1985 transformation of China's national military strategy reoriented the PLA away from its almost exclusive concern with continental defence. This vivid change in strategy required major modifications in the PLA's operational doctrine, expanding the roles and missions of its air and naval forces, and abrogating essentially all of the principal elements that form the core of "people's war".
The posturing of China's PLA in the border regions shared with India that has surfaced in the backdrop of its shifting strategy from continental to peripheral defence tends to underline China's military doctrinal intent of resolving to "fight and win local wars on its borders". Besides, it accentuates the enhanced ability of the PLA towards becoming a more mobile and better-equipped fighting force, which can be deployed faster and sustained over a longer period of time across the high altitudes of the Tibetan plateau and provide all-inclusive support for any potential offensive operation outside of its mainland.
Dr. Monika Chansoria is a Visiting Senior Scholar at the Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC), Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, USA
Courtesy: The Sunday Guardian, 7 October 2012
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