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.