New Delhi: China may have quietly moved tonnes of military gear while it was conducting military exercises in the remote mountainous Tibet region, the PLA Daily, the official mouthpiece of Chinese military, has claimed.

The PLA had conducted 11-hour long live-fire exercises at an altitude of 5,000 meters on the plateau in Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region in a likely warning to India, which locked in a tense standoff in the Doklam area in Sikkim sector.

The haul, according to the PLA Daily, was transported to a region south of the Kunlun Mountains in northern Tibet by the Western Theatre Command. This unit oversees the restive regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, and handles border issues with India.

Though the deployment happened in northern Tibet, it is a cause for concern, considering the fact that it won't take much time for Chinese troops to move to their side of Nathu La in Sikkim.

The report claimed the hardware was moved simultaneously by rail and road last month.

China has been testing scenarios such as rapid deployment, multi-unit joint strike and anti-aircraft defence in the region. The PLA Daily, however, did not say if the movement of the military equipment was to support the exercise or for other reasons.

Shanghai-based military commentator Ni Lexiong, in an interview to the South China Morning Post, suggested it was most likely related to the stand-off and could have been designed to bring India to the negotiating table.

“Diplomatic talks must be backed by military preparation,” he was quoted as saying. According to some experts, the scale of equipment movement underscores China's capability of rapid deployment in the western borders.