China has tested its new multiple-launch rocket system

The Chinese military has tested its most advanced multiple-launch rocket system at high altitude to underscore its ability to operate in the disputed mountainous border between China and India, according to the state broadcaster CCTV. With a maximum range of up to 310 miles, the PCL-191 truck-launched rockets could threaten all Indian army bases along the so-called Line of Actual Control, the 2,100-mile notional demarcation frontier between Chinese and Indian -controlled territory in the Himalayas. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tested the rocket system at thousands of feet above sea level in the Himalayas, aiming at a target in a desert shooting range in western China. The test was announced to coincide with the start of new talks between the Chinese and Indian military aimed at trying to resolve a long-running border dispute in the Ladakh region of India-administered Kashmir. The 16th round of talks took place on Sunday. In 2020 fighting erupted in the region in the Galwan Valley, leading to the deaths of 20 Indian and four Chinese troops. It was the first deadly clash between the two countries in the Himalayan border area for 45 years. It involved ferocious hand-to-hand combat. The significance of the high-altitude test-firing of the PCL-191 which was first displayed by the PLA in China’s national day parade in October, 2019, is that it gives the weapon system an extended range. The PCL-191 can fire eight rockets with a range of 220 miles or two Fire Dragon tactical ballistic missiles that can reach up to 310 miles. “The PCL-191 is more capable when it’s deployed at high altitude, with its maximum range having been extended several times,” Zhou Chenming, a researcher with the Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank in Beijing told the South China Morning Post. A PCL-191 brigade was sent last year to China’s western theatre command in Xinjiang military district, near the border with India and is located 17,000ft above sea level. “They have shown that the PCL-191 brigade could be deployed anywhere in the country, from the coast to the Himalayas and take on challenges like the border dispute with India or even a Taiwan contingency,” Song Zhongping, a former PLA instructor and military commentator, told the paper. The reference to Taiwan follows reports in the PLA Daily that the PCL-191 rocket system has also been used in Xiamen in Fujian in the eastern theatre command, the closest point on the Chinese mainland to Taiwan. The distance from Xiamen to Taiwan is about 186 miles. High-altitude warfare in the modern era has been going on for decades. China invaded Tibet in 1953, and India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir’s Siachen Glacier since 1984 after Indian troops captured it. Both countries maintain a strong military presence in the area in hostile mountainous conditions. In other examples, the Russians fought the Mujahideen in the Hindu Kush mountains in eastern Afghanistan in the 1980s, and against Chechen separatists in the Caucasus mountains in the early 2000s. During the 20-year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, American troops with Afghan partners also fought in the Hindu Kush.