Foreign students watch PLA exercise

By Hu Yinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-29 07:25

Zhumadian, HENAN: Two hundred military students from 67 countries were invited to witness the annual PLA's Jinan Military Area Command exercise Tuesday.

Clouds of smoke fill the air Tuesday, as tank crews do battle during the Vanguard 2008 military exercise in Zhumadian, Henan Province. [China Daily]

The exercise in Henan province, marked the first time the Chinese military had opened its battalion-level field command center to foreigners.

Some 2,200 soldiers took part in the week-long exercise, codenamed "Vanguard 2008", which concluded yesterday.

More than 7,000 live ammunition rounds were used including Type-96 tanks, 122-mm self-propelled howitzers and Zhi-9 helicopters, Major-General Ma Qiusheng, director of the exercise, told a news briefing held earlier.

The aim of the exercise was to test offensive operations by an armored brigade in mountainous area, and in a complex electromagnetic environment, Senior Colonel Zheng Jiakai, said.

Like its predecessors, "Vanguard 2008" was staged at the Queshan Combined Tactics Training Base in Henan's Zhumadian city.

The 1,200 sq km base at an altitude of 800 m, consists of mountains and ranges.

The foreign military students are on a one-year training course at the National Defense University (NDU) and the Nanjing Army Command College. They arrived in China in September.

"I don't think there's much of a difference between the PLA and other modern armies now," NDU student Frouari Loic Roger Horst, who is poised to become France's military attache to China next year, said after observing the exercise.

A PLA member in charge of the NDU delegation, who declined to be named, said the students - mostly from developing countries - were most interested in the "tactics and strategies deployed with Chinese characteristics", such as Sun Tzu's art of war and Mao Zedong's military manoeuvres.

"We've had a beautiful one month. It has been an opportunity to get to know the Chinese. And, it is a good way of telling the world (what China is like)," Zahid Hamid Kiani, a colonel with the Pakistani Air Force, said.

"Because of media influences, there are some people who have issues with China But living within China and staying close to it, we know China has all the potential to emerge as the century's next world power," he said.