PLA to simulate Taiwan invasion

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is scheduled to stage in the near future a "highly realistic" amphibious landing exercise simulating a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan, military sources told the Taipei Times yesterday.

The exercise is to cover an extensive area from the South China Sea to seas off Fujian Province, with marine troops being the centerpiece of the show, sources said. Other naval branches and China's air force will also join in the drill to provide friendly fire or logistical support.

China's amphibious landing vessel fleet is now concentrated somewhere in the South China Sea, and will set sail in days to come toward an island off Fujian. The flotilla will carry an unidentified number of marine troops, sources said.

The island is judged by Taiwan's military to most likely be Pingtan. Pingtan, the largest island off the coast of Fujian, has in the past been the site of several large-scale amphibious landing drills by the PLA.

In the upcoming exercise, the participating Chinese marine troops are required to travel for three days at sea before they can land on the coast of Pingtan island.

Besides the amphibious landing exercise, the PLA's navy also plans to send the first Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyer bought from Russia into the East China Sea for maneuvers around Aug. 20, sources said.

Meanwhile, a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that last Sunday as President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was leaving for the US on his way to visit diplomatic allies in Central and South Americas, a number of Chinese warplanes had approached the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

"We don't know for sure what kind of planes they were, but we thought they were very likely Jian-8 fighter planes," the official said.

"Those planes moved southward along the median line of the strait before they made a turn off Tainan and flew back to their base in Luchiao, Zhejiang. Our air force responded to the sighting by sending IDFs to monitor the Chinese planes from some distance behind," he said.

The official admitted that the number of Chinese fighter planes making incursions into the air space over the Taiwan Strait has increased greatly since last July, after former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) made his "state-to-state" announcement.