The Chinese military will stage a large-scale logistics exercise before the Chinese New Year to re-supply its coastline troops with ammunition, intelligence sources said yesterday.
The ammunition has been used up during numerous exercises China has held over the past year.
Taiwan's intelligence agents in China are now paying special attention to the run-up to the exercise by the PLA, as well as what is to follow, intelligence sources said.
The logistics exercise is to be immediately followed by a 10-day vacation, during which the PLA will keep half of its troops on stand-by in camps.
What has aroused the interest of Taiwan's intelligence officials is the high percentage of stand-by troops the PLA will keep during the vacation period. The PLA usually maintains only one-third of its forces during major holiday periods, which is also true of Taiwan's military.
"It is reminiscent of the 1996 Chinese New Year because the PLA also kept half of its troops in camps during the vacation. We were not sure at the time what they were planning. But we later understood that they would launch missile tests in the Taiwan Strait," an intelligence official said.
"We hope this time will be different. It may or may not be directly connected with the upcoming logistics exercise. The exercise will feature the re-supply of ammunition of various sorts from inland to the coast. This is necessary because the PLA's front-line troops have almost run out of ammo due to a string of live-fire drills over the past year," he said.
"The PLA now is not the same as it was five years ago. Their battlefield command capabilities, for instance, have been greatly improved over the past few years," he said.
Last month, the PLA tested its nationwide fiber-optic network. Taiwan has yet to complete a similar network. Over the past year, the PLA has conducted a number of live-fire drills, including those directly across the Taiwan Strait in Fujian Province.
Part of the drills are aimed at testing the accuracy of new weapons such as a laser-guided missiles that have been purchased from Russia.
Tests of the Russian-made laser-guided missiles were not as successful as expected, causing the PLA leadership to publicly criticize troops responsible for the tests for their "incompetence."
Tests of this kind result in a heavy consumption of ammunition of various kinds, prompting the PLA to make a comprehensive re-supply of ammo by the end of the year.
The ammunition re-supply is to be staged in the style of an exercise for the sake of efficiency and speed.
The re-supply is to be carried out mainly through railways, which will cut the time needed to reach front-line bases along China's coast.
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