The desertion of four soldiers from a PLA base in Jilin province after stealing an automatic rifle with almost 800 bullets has sparked speculation about the reasons for their escape and how they carried it off.
Both the People's Liberation Army and the provincial government remained silent on the incident. It took police a day to track down the four after they absconded from the base in Shulan on Wednesday. Three of the soldiers were shot dead, and the fourth was wounded and captured.
Analysts said that while there been occasional cases of individual PLA soldiers going absent without leave, this incident was a special case as the four had acted as a group.
This, and the fact that they were well-trained and armed, made them potentially very dangerous, said Dr Zeng Zhiping, a retired lieutenant colonel and military law expert at Nanchang Institute of Technology in Jiangxi province.
Police said they had mobilised all available officers to track down the four as soon as they received news of their escape.
Three of the soldiers were shot dead as they traded gunfire with police near Yingkou, the hometown of two of the group in neighbouring Liaoning province.