The Chinese military command responsible for patrols around Taiwan stepped up its drills by staging a long-endurance early-warning exercise in March, involving 36-hour exercises simulating countering enemy planes during wartime. “The People’s Liberation Army’s Air Force used to rely only on ground-based early-warning aircraft. Only in the past two decades, it started to acquire airborne early-warning and control aircraft, which could allow the air force to extend their radar coverage beyond the limits of ground-based radars,” said Collin Koh, a research fellow from NTU’s RSIS.