Article Posted on : - Sep 28, 2012

One of the images, released by the People's Daily website, shows Chinese fighter jets conducting live fire drill in the Tibetan plateau.

BEIJING (PTI): China on Thursday flashed pictures of the recent "first ground to air military exercise" held on the Tibetan plateau involving scores of fighter jets, hundreds of battle tanks and a large number of ground troops lighting up the Himalayan region along the Indian border.

State-run People's Daily online carried photos of air and ground troops exercises providing "glimpses of PLA's fist air-ground drill at a plateau" with snow capped Himalayan mountains providing the backdrop.

State-run media rarely provides any detailed write up on military drills but reveals them through photos on the official websites.

The series posted in the PD Online showed dozens of thousands of troops and dozens of aircraft holding live fire exercises.

Earlier reports stated that the Chinese air force held the first night time military exercises in Tibet along the disputed borders with India.

This is the first time that China has held such massive exercises demonstrating the potential of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in mobilising that kind of huge numbers in the Tibetan plateau, taking advantage of the widespread infrastructure development in the remote Himalayan kingdom, which aroused widespread concerns in India.

The exercises were seen as part of all round muscle flexing by the 2.8 million strong PLA in the midst of escalating maritime tensions in South China Sea as well as with Japan and the planned big military push by the US into Asia Pacific.

Besides launching the first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, two days ago, the Chinese military claimed to have carried out a successful test of a missile with multiple warheads capable of hitting targets 14,000 km away.