November21, 2006:
In mid-November, China conducted several days of field exercises to
see how prepared, or not, its troops were for electronic warfare. Air force,
artillery and commando units were subjected to intense use of jammers and other
electronic weapons. Naturally, China was not giving out any details about the
exercise. But because of the effect it had on nearby civilian communications,
it was impossible to hide that something electronic was going on. So the
Chinese sent out a press release, saying that 8,000 troops would be involved.
But just the fact that an exercise like this was held, shows that the Chinese
are now more serious about electronic warfare. In the past, the Chinese did not
worry too much about electronic warfare, because they didn't have a lot of
electronics to make war on. That has changed over the last decade, and now
electronic warfare is a hot item in the Chinese military.