Since the PLA completed the theater reform and changed from the original seven military regions to five major theaters, the western theater's mission orientation and the direction of war preparation have always been extremely clear, that is, to deal with military threats and risks that may arise in the direction of China's western flank. As for who will become our opponent in the relevant direction, I believe that most people will think of India first. Indeed, as a self-proclaimed "largest country in South Asia" and pursuing "expansionism", India has always harbored ill intentions towards China's southern Tibet region, and has had more military frictions with us, making it a potential adversary that has to be guarded against. It is not difficult to see from the daily training in the Western Theater that the front-line troops are not only preparing to meet the needs of the current military struggle, but are also aiming at a more high-end future war.
An air defense missile unit in the Western Theater equipped with the "Hongqi-16".
In a program on CCTV's national defense and military channel, the daily training of an air defense unit in the western theater of the People's Liberation Army was reported. From the video footage, it is not difficult for us to find that this is a unit equipped with domestic land-based "Hongqi-16" anti-aircraft missiles, and among the training equipment used by the unit, a photo of a fighter with a three-wing aerodynamic layout similar to the Russian Sukhoi series has appeared. Considering that the main task of the Western Theater is to deal with the military threat from India, the aircraft in the photo should be the Russian-made Su-30MKI heavy fighter that the Indian Air Force relies on, which is one of the few models in the Su-27 family that adopts a three-wing layout, and the largest user country is India.
Photo of a suspected Su-30MKI fighter on a whiteboard
Thinking about it this way, this ground-to-air missile unit should be organizing officers and men to study relevant knowledge and understand the performance characteristics and appearance characteristics of the potential adversary's main battle equipment, especially the rather important characteristics of radar reflected signals. Only in this way can we better defeat our opponents in the demands of a possible military struggle. What is even more positive is that not only are the photos of the suspected Su-30MKI fighter, but the unit also has a more high-end model teaching aid, that is, a scaled model of the stealth fighter.
Officers and soldiers hold teaching aids for stealth fighter models
We know that all countries on the South Asian subcontinent, including India, are not equipped with even a fifth-generation stealth fighter, and the Indian Air Force, which has the strongest comprehensive strength, is only a French Rafale fighter with a 4.5-generation level. As for when India will install fifth-generation aircraft, it is optimistically estimated that it will take about 10 years. Previously, the project of Russia and India to jointly develop FGFA stealth fighters on the basis of Russian Su-57 fighters has been scrapped; New Delhi has reacted coldly to the United States' opinion of "exporting F-35 to India"; India's self-developed medium-sized fifth-generation aircraft project AMCA is still only in the stage of model and PPT, and it is expected that the first flight of the prototype will not be realized until 2028~2029.
India's AMCA stealth fighter project is still on paper
From this point of view, for the foreseeable period of time in the future, the western theater of the People's Liberation Army will not have an overly urgent operational demand for "anti-stealth fighters". However, in the daily training of this air defense and missile unit, a subject similar to anti-stealth warfare has appeared, which obviously shows that it is not only preparing for the present but also preparing for potential military struggles in the future. This kind of long-term vision and the constant tightening of the strings of war readiness all embody the Chinese military's fine tradition of "being lenient in anticipating the enemy."
Ground-based Hongqi-16 missiles launched
Considering that China has been deeply engaged in air defense operations, especially anti-stealth fighter operations, for many years, it is believed that the surface-to-air missile units of all branches of the armed forces have some experience in this field. Only when we develop equipment technology, training methods, and tactics can we always be one step ahead of potential adversaries in terms of the pace of progress, and we will be able to remain permanently invincible. Now it seems that the PLA's Western Theater has even begun to prepare for a potential military struggle in 10 years' time, proving once again that the Chinese army is a trustworthy and reliable powerful armed force.