Bracing for a possible future
showdown with US
forces in Asia , the Chinese
People's
Liberation Army
(PLA) has introduced English commands in
military drills
to get its troops acquainted with commands of
the "rival third
party forces".
Pilots
of the PLA Air Force on a routine training
recently were
caught off guard by chatter in English over
their radio, the
Chinese-military-run PLA Daily said in a
report.
By the
time they had figured out that they had to
confront a third
party, their field command - an early-warning
plane - had
already been shot down, the Daily reported.
The
"third party" was a surprise scenario added to
the
drill to
strengthen the air force's real combat response
capability, the
Chinese army newspaper said.
Analysts said the
inclusion of an English-speaking third
party in PLA drills was aimed at
sending a message that the
Chinese military is preparing for
possible intervention by the
countries over territorial disputes,
the Hong Kong based
South
China Morning Post said in a
report.
English chatter figured
in the drill took place early
last
month.
As a battle between the
PLA air force and its pseudo
opponent, the "blue army", reached
its climax, the PLA pilots
suddenly heard in English over the
radio: "Target on a radial
180.60." Followed by "Roger," the
PLA Daily report said.
"Who is that? Why is
there a foreign language?" some PLA
pilots asked, according to the
newspaper.
The shooting down of the
"red army" airborne command
centre in the military drill forced
its air force land
commander to withdraw all fighter
jets and change strategy to
deal with the crisis, it
reported.
"The 'third party force'
was another surprise scenario we
provisionally added to the drill
with the aim of making our
training more like real combat," the
daily quoted drill
director Jing Jianfeng as saying.
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