Chinese ZBD-08 IFV. What is that mast?

Note:  The pics below are from Defense Blog.  He identified the pictured vehicles as new Recon variants.  I'm not so sure about that.

What you see above are two identical pics from Defense Blog.  In the below pics I highlighted the mast.  What is that?  It doesn't look like a sight system.  I don't think its some type of anti-missile setup.  Any ideas?

Different subject....  I'm assuming these are Chinese Infantry (Army, Marines...doesn't matter....no indication that they're special ops and they're not equipped like a Sniper Platoon).   So what's the deal with the ghillie suits?  Is that standard issue?  Are they working on ways to reduce their IR signature?  Yeah.  Time to start watching infantry developments to see if this is a one off or a trend.  Additionally I need to find specs on those suits.  They're taking this seriously folks.  We need to get hard or they will DRINK OUR MILKSHAKE!