By Zachary Keck
A senior US military official says the PLA has been holding exercises to practice seizing islands in the East China Sea.
A senior U.S. military officer has accused China’s People Liberation Army of training for a “short sharp war” against Japan in the East China Sea aimed at seizing the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.
According to the U.S. Naval Institute, Captain James Fanell, Director, Intelligence and Information Operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said that the massive Mission Action 2013 exercise between all three branches of the PLA last year was aimed at preparing for a war to defeat Japan’s Self Defense Forces in a conflict in the East China Sea.
“We witnessed the massive amphibious and cross military region enterprise — Mission Action 2013,” USNI News quoted Capt. Fanell as saying. “[We] concluded that the PLA has been given the new task to be able to conduct a short sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea following with what can only be expected a seizure of the Senkakus or even a southern Ryukyu [islands] — as some of their academics say.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat