April 12, 2013 09:15
China recently moved an Army corps close to the North Korean border and staged a live-fire exercise with tanks and self-propelled guns.
Experts believe Beijing is taking no chances in case a North Korean provocation leads to an emergency.
The official Global Times on Monday reported that an armored brigade from a Shenyang mechanized infantry unit carried out live-fire maneuvers near the border on April 1.
Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun quoted a source in Dandong as saying the Chinese military has also stepped up vehicle patrols along the North Korean border.
Surveillance cameras have recently been installed on barbed wire fences along a 200 km-long section of the border between Hunchun and Helong in the Chinese province of Jilin on the Duman River, according to a source in Yanbian. The move seems to be part of China's preparations for a mass exodus of refugees from North Korea.
"Chinese military authorities installed the surveillance cameras after replacing poorly maintained barbed wire fences with new, 2 m-high ones over the past two years," the source added.
Meanwhile, observers in Dandong watched North Korean paratroopers in a parachute jump exercise from helicopters in Sinuiju for about two hours on Wednesday morning, Japan's Kyodo News reported. According to Kyodo, at least 50 North Korean soldiers jumped from the helicopters.
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