A pair of advanced destroyers kicked off an intensive and wide-ranging training exercise soon after they were assigned to the People’s Liberation Army division that oversees Taiwan and the East China Sea.
The newly commissioned 12,000-tonne guided-missile destroyers, the Dongguan and Anqing, took part in their first live-fire training in mid-March, simulating high-intensity combat missions, the official PLA Daily reported on Sunday.
The Type 055 “super destroyers” are the first of their kind in service with the Eastern Theatre Command naval force, which oversees the waters in the direction of Taiwan and the East China Sea opposite Japan.
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A senior officer with the East Sea Fleet said the destroyers would “accelerate their integration into the joint combat system” of Eastern Theatre Command, according to the newspaper report.
The deployment came as relations between Tokyo and Beijing remained strained over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks in November that Japan might militarily intervene in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
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The Dongguan and Anqing, bearing hull numbers 109 and 110 respectively, are equipped with more advanced equipment than the first batch of Type 055 destroyers, according to the PLA Daily.
The exercises tested the new destroyers’ defences against rapid aerial targets under heavy electromagnetic interference. They also carried out multi-wave saturation strikes against enemy surface vessels that were attempting to escape using nearby islands and reefs.
