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

The post-9/11 threat of al-Qaida and other terrorist
organizations on China’s western borders provided
additional incentive to prepare for potential anti-terrorist
operations in the region. Having no recent experience
in conducting operations as part of a military
alliance, China’s decision to hold such exercises seeks
to identify early-on problems inherent in multilateral
operations while also learning from the experience
of other countries. The American and NATO use of
bases in Central Asia to support military operations
in Afghanistan also may have encouraged Beijing to
further cement military ties with SCO members.
Held in the Pamir-Alay mountain range, “Exercise-01”
involved “several hundred men of the two
countries’ border defense units and more than 10 armored
combat vehicles and numerous helicopters.”
The scenario posited that “more than 100 ‘terrorists’
had secretly assembled on the Kyrgyz side of the border
with a great quantity of weapons and ammunition,
and were attempting to take advantage of the
complex terrain to sneak into China. After consultations,
the Chinese and Kyrgyz forces launched a joint
operation to surround and annihilate these ‘terrorists’.”
Using “hammer and anvil” tactics, the Kyrgyz
border defense troops attacked the terrorists forcing
them to flee into China. There their retreat was cut off
and they were mopped up by the combined forces of
both countries. 11 The exercise also included a live-fire
phase. Friendly and enemy forces in this exercise were
constructed according to attack ratios found in any basic
military doctrine. Attackers outnumbered defenders
at a ratio of at least 3:1 (“several hundred” Chinese
and Kyrgyzstan troops versus about 100 terrorists).
The Chinese coalition also had more advanced weapons
(in this case, armor and helicopters) than the ter-
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