China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently practiced beach assaults in recent drills in the South China Sea. While some anti-Beijing media have raised the alarm over a supposed dress rehearsal for seizing Taiwan’s Pratas Islands, there is no indication the exercises had such a focus.
According to a Sunday report by the Global Times, the PLA is in the middle of extensive war games in southern China, practicing its handling of amphibious assaults in particular.
The outlet also noted the PLA Marine Corps practiced a “sea-crossing landing exercise” in Guangdong the week prior, which involved amphibious assault vehicles and assault craft.
According to the Global Times, China’s Maritime Safety Administration said the drills would also include two live-fire exercises: one on August 11 and 12, and another on August 16 and 17, in the East China Sea near Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province.
Unproven Rumors of Pratas Invasion
Sputnik News recently reported on how rumors appeared in Japanese media of a PLA dress rehearsal for invading several islands controlled by Taiwan would be held in the region this month. However, there is no evidence the ongoing drills are aimed at any particular country or goal, and they are more likely simply general practice for the country’s rapidly expanding marine forces.
Both reports touched off a slew of speculation and hysteria in US and Taiwanese media, which reported the Kyodo claims as fact. In response to the most recent story, Taipei dispatched 200 soldiers from an elite unit to Pratas Island and armed its jets with live anti-ship missiles in anticipation of the drills.
Satellite photo of Pratas (Dongsha) Island, a 590-acre island which sits 270 south of Taiwan and 210 east of China. It is controlled by Taiwan.
However, not only is it unclear that the PLA is rehearsing an invasion of Pratas, which is a 590-acre horseshoe-shaped atoll barely big enough to hold an airstrip, but it’s even less clear if Beijing is actually interested in doing anything to take the island by force. Even murkier still is if the United States military would actually risk a major war with China over a Chinese invasion of Taiwan island itself, far be it to assume US soldiers would come to the defense of little Pratas.
Instead, the drills are more likely an attempt to bring the huge new PLA Marine Corps up to speed with other marine units in other countries. In 2018, the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on the Chinese military noted Beijing planned to more than triple the size of its marine corps from two brigades to seven in just three years’ time, bringing its strength to more than 30,000 soldiers. However, even this force is dwarfed by the US Marine Corps, which has some 186,000 persons under arms.
US Navy Brings New Provocations
The Hainan drills come amid an unprecedented US military presence in the region. Sputnik reported recently that a Chinese think tank recorded 67 US intelligence flights through the South China Sea in July alone, and Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Xinhua News Agency in an August 5 interview that “in the first half of this year alone, the US sent military aircraft there [to the South China Sea] more than 2,000 times.”
On Monday morning, Taiwanese officials said they “drove out” several Chinese aircraft that briefly crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan from the mainland. While the eastern half of the strait is not technically owned by Taiwan, Taipei considers it to be its airspace nonetheless.
By Morgan Artyukhina
Sourse: sputniknews.com
0.00 (0%) 0 votes
