In this video Chinese forces are seen charging towards a nuclear blast on horseback, as well as on foot. The horses are even equipped with gasmasks, an odd sight to see. As the title says, what was the context/motivation for doing this?
Are they really? I never see soldiers and the blast in the same from, except maybe kinda-sorta at 3:08. It all looks like editing to me.
The answer is yes but the context is not quite the same as the video shows. The video is edited from several different test clips, arguably meant to make it look more scary and primitive than the originals. To say nothing of the rather "savage" music choices, which are not in the original clips, which are available in a film known as "Mao's Little Red Video" (which I am pleased to find is on YouTube).
But yes, they did conduct military exercises around nuclear detonations. As did the United States and other nations. What makes these look remarkable to us it that the PRC still used horses for some of their military maneuvers, when the US had basically stopped that after World War I. However it is worth noting that if you are going to use horses for your military maneuvers, seeing how they react to a nuclear test is a pretty good experiment, if you want them to be functional in a nuclear confrontation. The US tests as part of Operation Desert Rock served the same function but with soldiers (e.g., can they still follow orders, if a nuke has just gone off?).