Chinese army announces drill to test its digitalized forces

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has announced it will be holding a military exercise in June, aimed at testing “new types of combat forces including units using digital technology amid efforts to adjust to informationalized war.”

The exercise is to be held at the Zhurihe training base in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and, according to state news agency Xinhua, it “will be the first time a PLA exercise has focused on combat forces including digitalized units, special operations forces, army aviation and electronic counter forces.”

Two army corps and eight military academies will also participate.

The news comes in the wake of the revelation that Chinese hackers were probably behind a wide cyber espionage campaign that resulted in the theft of documents and designs of two dozen critical U.S. weapons systems, and increasing calls by politicians to penalize Chinese (and other) companies whose products were likely partially a result of intellectual property theft from U.S. companies.

As the date of the first meeting between China’s new president Xi Jinping and U.S. president Barack Obama draws near, cyber espionage and cyber conflict seem to be quickly climbing to the top of the list issues that need to be discussed.