PLA holds night live-fire drills near border with Myanmar
Chinese forces conduct live-fire exercises and bolster defences in Yunnan province close to Myanmar as neighbour battles rebels
The People's Liberation Army conducted a night live-fire drill in the border province of Yunnan as fighting continued between government troops and ethnic Chinese rebels in neighbouring Myanmar, according to mainland media.
China Central Television's military channel reported on Tuesday night that a brigade from the Yunnan-based 14th Army Corps "recently" carried out a large-scale live-fire drill in mountain areas in the west of the province to test the troops' "combat readiness at night".
Footage of the drills showed soldiers equipped with flamethrowers conducting various exercises under intense artillery fire.
The report did not disclose other details of the exercise.
The drills came after China claimed earlier this month that a Myanmese warplane dropped a bomb on a sugarcane field in the province, killing five residents and injuring eight.
Myanmar's presidential office denied that one of its warplanes strayed into Chinese territory during the fighting with the rebels in the border region of Kokang. A senior official from the office told the Associated Press that the bombing could have been the work of a group seeking to create confusion.
Shen Shishun , director of the department of Asia-Pacific security and cooperation at the China Institute of International Studies, said the drill was a message to both the Myanmese government and Chinese residents in the area that China's forces had stepped up defences.