A ship-borne helicopter attached to a frigate flotilla with the navy under the PLA Southern Theater Command practices lifting off and landing in coordination with the guided-missile frigate Enshi (Hull 627) during a maritime realistic training exercise in late November, 2021.Photo:China Military

 

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched on Wednesday a series of exercises in three different directions of Hainan Island, China's second largest island only behind the island of Taiwan, in a move analysts said aims to enhance the troops' joint combat preparedness in possible amphibious landing missions on islands.

A live-fire shooting exercise was organized in the South China Sea, and the entering of a designated sea area was prohibited, according to a navigation restriction notice released by the local maritime safety administration on Monday.

The coordinates that the notice has given indicate the drill would take place to the northeast of Hainan Island.

Another navigation restriction notice released on Monday similarly announced that a live-fire shooting exercise will take place from Thursday to Friday in the Beibu Bay, which is to the northwest of Hainan Island.

A third navigation restriction notice on Monday said military exercises would start from Wednesday and last until Friday in the South China Sea, and coordinates show the drill location is also off the shores of Hainan Island, to its southwest.

The three time-overlapping drills will surround China's second largest island from three different directions, observers said, noting there is a possibility that the PLA is using Hainan to simulate the island of Taiwan.

The PLA's exercises nowadays often feature joint operations, and this also applies if the drills are about amphibious landing on islands, Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Such exercises likely have the island of Taiwan in mind, as the PLA is eyeing to gain stronger capabilities to deter potential interferences by foreign forces on the Taiwan question, Song said.

However, this possibility remains speculative, since none of the three navigation restriction notices revealed further details of the drills.

Nevertheless, the concentrated drills indicate a strong combat preparedness of the PLA, observers said.

Just as the drills were about to begin, an RC-135W electronic reconnaissance aircraft of the US Air Force on Tuesday conducted what seems to be a close-in reconnaissance mission on the southeast coastlines of the Chinese mainland, covering South China's Guangdong Province, Hainan Island and Xisha Islands in the South China Sea, according to the monitoring of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, a Beijing-based think tank.

Song said that the US spy plane likely attempted to gather information on the PLA drills and to understand the true capabilities of the PLA.

In another recent, undated drill in the South China Sea, three warships affiliated with the PLA Southern Theater Command Navy, the Tongling, the Enshi and the Guangyuan, practiced main gun shooting against hostile ships, mine sweeping and other combat-oriented training courses over seven days and nights, China Central Television reported on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, five PLA aircraft - one Y-8 electronic warfare aircraft, one Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, two J-10 fighter jets and one Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft - entered Taiwan's self-proclaimed southwest air defense identification zone, according to the defense authorities on the island.