国内英语新闻:China kicks off air defense drills

BEIJING, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- China kicked off a five-day military exercise in two provinces on Tuesday in which 12,000 military personnel and seven types of military aircraft are taking part.

The military exercise, code-named "Vanguard-2010", was carried out simultaneously in seven cities across the provinces of Henan and Shandong at 8:21 a.m. Tuesday and featured simulated emergency evacuations and planning for combat.

The drill, consisting of two phases from Tuesday to Saturday, will feature emergency evacuations, war planning, reconnaissance, early warning activities, ground-to-air attacks and evacuations of command posts during its first phase ending Thursday.

Its second phase consists of testing Chinese air defense troops' ability in fighting air units in a "complicated electromagnetic environment."

At 8:21 a.m. on Tuesday, air defense forces from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and paramilitary forces in the seven cities including Qingdao, Jinan, Zhengzhou and Kaifeng began evacuation plans and successfully moved to designated areas, screens at the drill's commanding headquarter showed.

By about 10:10, an air defense brigade from the PLA Jinan Military Command led by its commander, Zhao Geng, had already traveled 100 km and begun to formulate war plans.