China steps up night drills in high-altitude areas facing Ladakh: Report

The PLA’s Western Theatre Command 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'.

New Delhi:The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China has stepped up its military exercises including night drills in the high-altitude areas in the Xinjiang Military District that faces India. In a reportage published in the Hong Kong–based English-language newspaper The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Sunday, the PLA’s Western Theatre Command, 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”.

The SCMP quoted Yang Yang, a company commander 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.”

According to Yang, mechanised force had been crossing the snowy highlands without lights and practising nighttime live-fire machine gun drills. The report noted that several forces in the region “have been carrying out night battle drills at altitudes of around 5,000 metres (16,400 feet), according to the military newspaper PLA Daily.”