China holds military drill in the Yellow Sea
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The People's Liberation Army (PLA) held a military supply drill in the Yellow Sea over the weekend, amid reported tension over a scheduled joint exercise between the United States and Republic of Korea (ROK) navies.
The PLA's General Logistics Department and the Office of Transport and Combat Readiness co-organized the latest drill, which started on Saturday "deep in the Yellow Sea", Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.
Codenamed "Warfare 2010", the exercise involved troops from the Jinan Military Region and staff of the Ministry of Transport, Xinhua reported.
The drill was aimed at improving defense capabilities against long-distance attacks. Four helicopters and four rescue vessels were deployed for the exercise on Saturday.
Tanks were also loaded onto vessels at a port in Yantai, Shandong province, on Sunday. Similarly, rail transported tanks to ships and other military equipment was transferred to vessels, Xinhua reported.
The exercise focused on transporting military supplies for future joint battles, Xinhua quoted drill commander Zuo Xiaohu as saying.
The drill came at a sensitive time with Washington and Seoul scheduled to hold a joint military exercise in the Yellow Sea. The joint exercise was postponed several times since June following strong objection from Beijing, which said such military action will only serve to further destabilize the situation in the region.
But the PLA's Yellow Sea drill was only a regular mission and had little to do with the US-ROK exercise, some Chinese military analysts said on Monday.
"The scale of the weekend exercise was quite small as it was co-organized by the Logistics Department, which is in charge of equipment transportation. The nature of the drill is very different from that of the US-ROK joint military action," Beijing-based military analyst Peng Guangqian told China Daily.
