BEIJING (Realist English). China’s People’s Liberation Army has conducted a major urban combat drill simulating the seizure of a war-damaged city, an exercise released by state broadcaster CCTV just days after Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te proposed a multibillion-dollar boost to the island’s “asymmetric capabilities”.
CCTV footage aired on Wednesday showed a PLA Ground Force brigade carrying out reconnaissance, clearance and occupation phases as part of a live-fire operation. Troops advanced in a light protected tactical vehicle fitted with a heavy machine gun and surveillance turret before storming a building deemed critical to the mock city’s infrastructure.
Infantry armed with rifles and portable anti-tank rockets manoeuvred through burning barricades, barbed wire and other obstacles, seizing urban positions in close-quarters conditions.
The report did not specify when or where the exercise took place. Its timing, however, closely followed Taipei’s introduction of a proposed US$40bn supplementary defence budget aimed at accelerating procurement of long-range missiles, drones and other asymmetric systems in response to intensifying PLA activity around the island.
