China’s air force has released a video showing nuclear-capable H-6 bombers carrying out a simulated attack on what appears to be Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.
The video, released on Saturday on People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) Sina Weibo (微博) account, came as China carried out a second day of drills near Taiwan to express Beijing’s anger at the visit of a senior US Department of State official to Taipei.
Guam is home to major US military facilities, including the air base.
Photo: Reuters / PLA Air Force online
The PLAAF’s 2 minute, 15 second video, titled The god of war H-6K goes on the attack!, is set to solemn, dramatic music like a trailer for a Hollywood movie, and shows H-6 bombers taking off from a desert base. Halfway through, a pilot presses a button and shoots a missile at an unnamed seaside runway.
The missile homes in on the runway, a satellite image of which is shown that looks exactly like the layout of Andersen, although the base is not named.
The music suddenly stops as images of the ground shaking appear, followed by aerial views of an explosion.
“We are the defenders of the motherland’s aerial security; we have the confidence and ability to always defend the security of the motherland’s skies,” the PLAAF wrote in a brief description for the video.
Neither the Chinese Ministry of National Defense nor the US Indo-Pacific Command immediately responded to a request for comment on the video.
Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said that the video was aimed at highlighting China’s growing prowess in long-range power projection.
“The video is meant to warn the Americans that even supposedly safe, rearward positions such as Guam may come under threat when conflicts over regional flashpoints, be it Taiwan or South China Sea, erupt,” he said.
However, Sina Weibo users have asked why the PLAAF’s Propaganda and Culture Center had to splice clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Transformers into the video, which has racked up 4.72 million views on Sina Weibo.
The explosive central missile sequences were taken from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Rock and The Hurt Locker.
“It turned out that our dream of great power was pieced together by editing American film clips,” one user said.
“We promote the domestic military aircraft using US Hollywood movie clips, why bother?” added another, while a third said: “It’s our nation’s promotional video, why don’t we use our own images?”
Additional reporting by AFP
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