The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

CHAPTER 8
PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY AND PEOPLE’S
ARMED POLICE GROUND EXERCISES
WITH FOREIGN FORCES, 2002-2009
Dennis J. Blasko
Since October 2002, Chinese People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) ground forces (i.e., Army units) and
People’s Armed Police (PAP) units have conducted
approximately 24 combined exercises with foreign
military, law enforcement, or emergency rescue organizations.
1 The general trend lines observed include
an increasing number of relatively small-scale, shortduration
exercises, conducted mostly with forces
from China’s immediate neighbors, in nontraditional
security missions that support Beijing’s larger foreign
policy objectives.
PLA and PAP units from all over the country,
with the exception of Nanjing Military Region (MR),
have participated in these exercises. 2 The official scenarios
for all combined exercises have been described
as nontraditional security missions, not directed at
any third party. 3 Most exercises have been designed
as anti-terrorist operations, with a few disaster relief,
humanitarian assistance, anti-drug smuggling, border
security, and emergency response exercises also included.
The annual number of combined exercises in the
first years after 2002 was low (one or two per year),
but in 2006 the pace picked up, reaching its current
high point of nine training events in 2009 (2008 was
an exception to that trend due to China’s hosting of
the Olympics). With one exception, combined ground
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