China Deploys its Most Advanced Tanks For Operations at Extreme Altitudes: Type 99A in the Karakoram Mountains

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has deployed its most capable class of battle tank the Type 99A to the Karakoram Mountain Range, a high altitude frontier near the country’s south-western borders with Indian and Pakistan. The deployment came shortly before the Chinese Spring Festival, the country’s main public holiday of the year, and was covered in a number of media outlets as a ‘reward’ for the Chinese border troops. This follows eight months of high tensions with neighbouring India in the border regions, after both sides suffered significant casualties during clashes in June 2020. The first reports of a deployment of Type 99A tanks came shortly before it was announced that China and India had begun to withdraw their forces from a number of areas along the border to reduce tensions, as part of a broader effort by both sides to ease tensions. 

The deployment of the Type 99A is particularly notable because the tanks are an elite and relatively scarce asset, with only around 300 of them in service while China’s total tank strength is over 3000. The tanks have been in service since 2011 and are considered among the most capable and sophisticated in the world, although they are not as widely deployed as the older Type 96A which fulfils a similar role and incorporates many of the same technologies but is significantly cheaper and less advanced. The deployment of the Type 99A guarantees a significant performance advantage over Indian battle tanks such as the T-72 and T-90 - where other Chineses tank designs may have struggled to match India’s newer T-90MS tanks of which several hundred are slated for deployment near the Chinese border.

Type 99A tanks have reportedly been deployed alongside Type 04A infantry fighting vehicles, and have provided an effective complement to lighter Type 15 tanks in the country’s Western Military District facing India and Central Asia. While the Type 15 was developed specifically with amphibious and mountain warfare in mind, however, operating the much heavier Type 99A at high altitudes such as those at Karakoram poses new challenges for the PLA. The presence of the Type 15 ttakes the burden off the larger tanks and allows the lighter ones to cover more difficult terrain - an advantage which India lacks due to its lack of light tanks of its own. India is thought to be considering acquiring more capable tanks in future, namely the T-14 Armata fourth generation tank from Russia, which combined with continuous upgrades to its very large fleets of T-90 and T-72 tanks poses a potentially serious challenge to China's much smaller armoured units in the area in the case of an outbreak of open hostilities.