China's Regime Conducts Military Exercise Operation to Simulate Nuclear War

The People's Liberation Army conducted its first-ever concurrent military exercise operation to simulate a nuclear war. The maneuvers were conducted from midnight April 26 through midnight May 15, 2008.

Operation '08-weiguo-20'
Military exercises simultaneously conducted in northern, middle, southwestern, and northwestern China were part of an operation code-named "08-weiguo-20."This was the first organized military exercise operation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) occurring after its 17th Congress and the 11th plenary session of the Political Consultative Conference. According to a high-ranking military official, judging from the scale of the engagement of the combined armed forces, the degree of sophistication of equipment, war strategy simulation, time, environment, and international concerns, the impact and significance of this exercise surpassed a military operation conducted by the regime in the spring and summer of 1996.

Four Parts of the Exercise
The military exercise consisted of four parts:

1) Integration of conventional weaponry in actual combat maneuvers
2) Testing the military tactics and strategies of high-level commanders with hi-tech criteria, in a simulated, complex, and intense war environment
3) Examination and assessment of actual state-of-the-art equipment and weaponry vis-a-vis the criteria of new military strategies and tactics
4) Simulation of nuclear and laser war

Guo Boxiong, deputy chairman of the military commission, was the commander-in-chief of this military project. The vice commanders were Liang Guanglie and Chen Bingde. Other commanding officers included Liao Xilong, Chang Wanquan, Ge Zhenfeng, Wu Shengli, Xu Qiliang, and Jing Zhiyuan.

Over 30 observation groups conducted on-site research. These groups were drawn from every division of the armed forces, including the seven major military bases, military schools, military science departments, and military equipment research and manufacturing units. Trend Magazine