China’s air force conducts ground attack training in Tibet/ENG

2012. március 23./Phayul.com/TibetPress

DHARAMSHALA, March 23: China has conducted a massive military exercise in the high altitude Tibetan plateau, close to the disputed borders with India.

In the "first operation of its kind", Chinese official media reported that the People's Liberation Army Air Force conducted ground attack training and tested the multi-role home made J-10 fighter jets.

This was also the second live-fire drill in recent months conducted by the Chinese army in the restive Tibetan region.

The fighters scrambled and attacked targets with conventional as well as laser-guided bombs, testing the jets’ performance on the 3,500-meter-high plateau at temperatures below -20 C.

State media reports indicated the J-10's activities on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is under the Chengdu military region, have been “relatively frequent in the past months”.

The Chengdu military region and the PLAAF in Tibet are primarily tasked with defending the disputed border with India

Indian observers believe that this rare display of news about military exercises by Chinese state media is a message of caution to the Indian side, which has also announced measures to beef up its border regions.

“These reports indicate that China is [strengthening] its conventional deterrents,” said Srikanth Kondapalli, an expert on the Chinese military at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“They basically want to convey to India or other neighbouring countries that they are preparing in high altitude [conditions].”

India and China occupied Tibet share a 3488 km long disputed border which was the cause of a short but bloody war in 1962. Since then, the two Asian giants have shared uneasy military ties with a series of border talks failing to yield much result.

Last month an independent group of Indian analysts, in a hard-hitting report warned that China might resort to territorial grabs on India, including through a "major military offensive."

The report titled "Non-Alignment 2.0" said China could assert its territorial claims by the use of force and argued that India can't "entirely dismiss the possibility of a major military offensive in Arunachal Pradesh or Ladakh," while suggesting a response with "a strategy of quid pro quo.”