The Chinese soldiers stationed along the borders struggle to operate in the challenging climatic conditions, that the terrain and high-altitude region of the Tibetan Plateau offers. Chinese military deploys large number of unmanned ground vehicle to carry weapons, troops and supplies in its Western Desert Region as a measure to beat the poorly trained and inefficient soldiers. Maximum deployment is near the Chinese build-up in the Ladakh region.
As per News Now, China has deployed 88 “Shark Claw” weapon in the Tibet region and 38 of them are in placed in the western province, close to the standoff region along with 120 “Mule 200” transport vehicle manufactured by Zhong Tian Zhu Kong Technology Holdings with a range of 50 Km also referred as the partner vehicle of Shark Claw by the Chinese Army and is used for transporting valuable supplies and ammunition.
These robots are well equipped with camera and machine guns allowing Chinese soldiers to fire these through a remote-control device from a good range. In addition to this 70 VP-22 armored troop transports and 150 Lynx all-terrain vehicles has been deployed in the border region.
VP-22 acts as an ambulance and can accommodate 15 passengers at a time. Lynx will further provide flexibility to the PLA allowing transportation of troops, mounted weapons like heavy machine gun, howitzer, mortals and missile launchers.
The Western Theatre Command Leadership have undergone several changes since last year. In December 2020, General Zhang Xudong took over as the Head of WTC after retirement of his predecessor. In July 2021, General Jhang replaced General Xu.
In September 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping who also heads Central Military Commission of China appointed Senior PLA Commander Wang Haijang, a veteran of 1979 Sino-Vietnam War as the new General and Head of Crucial Western Theatre Command (WTC) and have promoted 5 new Commanders. The change of three Chinese Military General in the last nine months suggests a clouded communist China.
The induction of robots in the PLA is a prelude to a mischief Chinese mind. For now, robots which will be operated by the struggling Chinese soldiers but China wants weapons with a mind of their own.
Beijing’s move to acquire such capabilities can be dated back to 2017, when China unveiled a New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, that advocates the use of AI for specific applications like decision making, military deductions, support to command and development to military
AI weapon or Intelligentized weapons utilise artificial intelligence to distinguish, formulate plan and destroy enemy targets based on a collection of information in a knowledge-based system assisted by mission implementation systems and decision assistance systems.
Different wings of the Chinese military are working on specific projects with the companies. The PLA Ground Force is developing “Military Robotics”, the Navy is working on “Autonomous Submarines” while the Air Force developing drones with the ability to think.
On 18 Aug 2021, Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in an article “How China aims to argument its military strength using AI” indicated one, ‘PLA’s advancement in AI and related technologies’ two, ‘Examples of collaborations under Civil-Military Fusion’ and three, China’s act of designating Chinese tech companies as “AI Champions” and allocating particular areas to each pioneer. The company list includes well known names like Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, Xiaomi and Huawei.
Beijing’s advancement to give robots to the PLA raises alarms worldwide. Also, this month the United Nation efforts for the International Treaty on Autonomous Weapons with major weapon producing countries failed and now, provide Beijing more time for ‘try till perfection’ the AI technology.
The CCP has a habit of creating border tensions in its attempt to distract crises at home. The deployment of robots is a distracting act especially after the recent energy shortage leading to a blackout China and returning Covid cases leading to an announcement of the extended lockdown in China.
Beijing is inviting unnecessary threat the world. Situations like these bear no fruit. The earlier China understands the better.
