January6, 2007:
Of great interest to American intelligence reconnaissance units (that
operate aircraft and ships loaded with electronic monitoring gear) is the
Chinese efforts to develop the ability to detect stealth aircraft. American
stealth aircraft rely on materials and design factors that confuse radar and
heat sensing systems. Chinese spies have shown an intense interest in American
stealth technology, and part of that is the need to know exactly how it works.
With that knowledge, it is possible to tweak your radars and other sensors to
make American stealth aircraft less stealthy. It is believed that the Chinese
are already adjusting some of their radars, and deploying new electronic
sensors, in an effort to defeat stealth. China is working on a system that will
use radars on ships, land and in the air to, in combination, make U.S. stealth
technology less so. Thus the intense interest U.S. electronic monitoring units
have in what the Chinese military is broadcasting these days.