China has steadily upgraded its missile bases along the Southeast coast amid rising tensions in the region over Taiwan’s attempts to improve its relationship with the United States, the South China Morning Post reports.

The newspaper’s military source based in Beijing claims that the People’s Liberation Army have upgraded some of its bases in the region with the most advanced hypersonic missile available: the DF-17.

“The DF-17 hypersonic missile will gradually replace the old DF-11s and DF-15s that were deployed in the southeast region for decades,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The new missile has a longer range and is able to hit targets more accurately.”

Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Kanwa Defence Review in Canada, noted that “every rocket force brigade in Fujian and Guangdong is now fully equipped,” according to satellite images of those provinces.

“The size of some of the missile bases in the Eastern and Southern theatre commands have even doubled in recent years, showing the PLA is stepping up preparations for a war targeting Taiwan,” he added.

He also noted that the PLA has deployed an advanced, Russian-built air-defense system to detect and destroy missiles, drones and yets that can “cover the whole of Taiwan,” to defend from an attack.

China’s Marine Corps have also bulked up in the region, with 10 of its 13 brigades now based in various places along the Southeast coast, and its headquarters now located in Guangdong.

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