FPI / October 15, 2020
By Richard Fisher
While the actual date of the amphibious exercises has not been revealed, Chinese state media on the weekend of Oct. 10 offered much coverage of the exercises for television and print propaganda.
Citing Taiwanese press reports on Oct. 11, the Hong Kong News website reported the exercises were held in Guangdong and Fujian Provinces, with “live fire” exercises as close as 71 km to the Taiwan-controlled offshore island of Kinmen.
According to the Global Times issue of Oct. 11:
“Cross-service multidimensional joint amphibious landing exercises recently started in waters off the coast of East China’s Fujian and South China’s Guangdong provinces, in which the combined amphibious forces affiliated with the PLA 73rd Group Army integrated with newly established forces including army aviation, special operation and electronic countermeasures units and comprehensively tested their combat capabilities in realistic war scenarios…”
Chinese television coverage featured People’s Liberation Army Navy amphibious invasion ships being supported by large numbers of troop-carrying transport helicopters and attack helicopters, which would account for the “multidimensional” aspect of the exercises.
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