Chinese military tests evacuation skills to prepare for possible Taiwan conflict, analysts say
- Drill focuses on transporting wounded soldiers from ‘medium- to long-distance islands’ using helicopters and drones
- Exercise addresses weak link in China’s logistics support capabilities, observers say
The exercise was conducted by the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theatre Command on an unidentified island off the east coast of Zhejiang province, CCTV’s military channel reported on Monday. It is unclear when the exercises took place.
The test, which used helicopters coordinated by land and air forces, focused on speeding up the evacuation of wounded soldiers from “medium- to long-distance islands” in both peace and wartime, the report said.
02:28
‘Preparing for war’: China revises military recruitment rules for the first time since 2001
According to the report, a brigade of the Coastal Defence Force under the command took part in the drills. The brigade is stationed on coastal islands to the east of Zhejiang.
“Due to geographical restrictions, medical evacuation of officers and soldiers is carried out over long distances and difficult,” said a video caption shown in the report.
Drones were used for reconnaissance and pinpointing the locations of the mock wounded soldiers in the exercise, according to the video.
The video showed the wounded were transported by a helicopter and transferred to a command hospital.
“In this medical and logistics exercise, we introduced air mobility forces for the first time, which greatly shortened the evacuation and treatment time for the wounded,” the report quoted Su Xingliang, director of the brigade’s support department, as saying.
Su said the exercise improved the medical treatment abilities of the coastal forces and future drills would involve working with local medical forces to ensure that every wounded person could be treated within the “golden rescue time”.
Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel, said he believed the brigade involved in the exercise was responsible for overseeing the Zhoushan islands, an archipelago of many small islands off the northern coast of Zhejiang.
“Rescue by helicopters is about exploring new medical treatments and overcoming obstacles such as sea transport that can be very time-consuming,” Yue said.
04:39
Taiwan residents living within sight of mainland China voice concerns over live-fire drills
He noted that a Z-8 helicopter with a range of 800km (497 miles) was used in the exercise, which could be deployed in military conflicts in the Taiwan Strait or over the disputed Diaoyu Islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan, which also claims them.
Evacuation of wounded soldiers in the event of a possible military action against the island has been seen as a weak link in the PLA’s logistics support, according to a report released last year by the China Maritime Studies Institute of the US Naval War College.
“PLA experts believe that [Chinese navy] medical evacuation assets are inadequate,” the report stated.
Song Zhongping, a former PLA instructor, said the exercise was meant to improve military logistics, including rescue missions in island battles, “which of course include rescue missions for [our] military struggles over Taiwan”.
