Xi Jinping worries that China’s troops are not ready to fight

The lastPLAUNPLA time Chinese troops were caught in a major firefight, they learned a painful lesson. A unit was in South Sudan in 2016 on peacekeeping duty, tasked with protecting two camps of civilians. When rebels and government forces clashed, the camps came under fire. As the Chinese troops took refuge, a rocket-propelled grenade hit one of their vehicles, killing two of them.Back home, China’s government portrayed the tragedy as evidence that the country was emerging as a great world power, ready to shoulder weighty responsibilities. But to the ’s commanders, the episode was a debacle that exposed one of their greatest vulnerabilities: an almost complete lack of combat experience.