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

force exercises have involved relatively limited numbers
of personnel, numbering from a few dozen to a
few thousand. The largest exercise was the combined
and joint Sino-Russian “Peace Mission-2005” with approximately
10,000 total participants of which about
8,000 were Chinese. Exercise duration varies from a
day (or less) to more than a week (not counting deployment,
acclimation, and redeployment times).
In the course of these exercises, Chinese forces
have gained valuable experience in operating with
foreign forces, command and control, staff planning
procedures, long-distance rail or air deployment, logistics,
and to a lesser extent actual battlefield tactics
and combat methods. The operational phase of most
exercises is relatively brief, small in scale, and heavily
choreographed. Many exercises highlight Special
Operations Forces (SOF) operations. Frequently live
firepower demonstrations are the climax of the exercises
followed by parades and reviews as friendshipbuilding
components.
When enemy forces are part of the scenario, they
are carefully calibrated to be comparatively small terrorist
or criminal forces, usually with only limited, if
any, high-technology weapons and equipment. Realistically,
many exercise take place in mountainous
regions where many actual terrorist organizations operate.
At times, the enemy may have access to radioactive,
biological, or chemical weapons, or the combined
forces may have to respond to chemical emergencies
and accidents. Portrayal of the enemy in such small
numbers with minimal advanced weaponry lends
credence to the official terrorist scenarios. Moreover,
no PLA Second Artillery units have been involved in
these combined exercises whereas the featured SOF
participation is appropriate for anti-terrorist operations.
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