China's military launched Tuesday its largest ever tactical military exercise, involving 50,000 heavily-armoured troops in a long-distance deployment spanning thousands of kilometres, state press said. The live-fire manoeuvres named "Stride-2009" will involve a division each from the Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou regional military commands and will last for two months, Xinhua news agency said.
"In the unprecedented exercise, one of the PLA's major objectives will be to improve its capacity of long-range projection," the report said, citing the general staff of the People's Liberation Army. "Unlike previous annual tactical exercises, the army divisions and their air units will be deployed in unfamiliar areas far from their garrison training bases by civilian rail and air transport."
This means troops, tanks, vehicles and weapons systems from Shenyang in the north-east will be deployed to Lanzhou in the north-west, while similar exchanges will take place between Jinan in the east and Guangzhou in the south, it said. According to the People's Liberation Army Daily, the exercises will simulate Chinese victories in the war against Japan (1937-1945) and victories against US troops during the Korean War (1950-1953).
Following annual double-digit growth in defence spending over most of the last 20 years, China's rapidly modernising military has kept pace with the nation's rising political and economic clout. The United States, Japan and their allies have repeatedly expressed concern about China's military build-up and what they see as a lack of transparency about the intent behind the expansion. With 2.3 million soldiers, the People's Liberation Army is the world's largest military.
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