Beijing ramping up new pressure tactics on democratic island it's aiming to seize

The "soaring dragon", a high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle, became the latest Chinese drone to threaten Taiwan’s airspace this week, in a sign of how important drones are becoming in the brewing conflict in east Asia.

The Guizhou WZ-7, which carries out aerial reconnaissance but can also provide targeting data for anti-ship ballistic missiles, flew its mission in Taiwan’s southwest Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Thursday.

The aggressive move came just days after Chinese military drones breached the median line of the Taiwan Strait for the first time as Beijing ramps up new pressure tactics on the democratic island it is controversially aiming to seize.

In recent weeks, drones have taken an increasingly high-profile role in the People’s Liberation Army’s “grey zone” harassment campaign of the island of 23.5 million, joining daily flights from warplanes and cyberattacks intended to sow fear of an invasion among the Taiwanese public.

The uptick in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was likely a sign China was rehearsing for future missions, said Ben Lewis, a US-based defence analyst tracking Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait.

“Undoubtedly, UAVs have become and will continue to be a focal element of PLA operations, and so their usage needs to be trained as much as any platform," he said. 

“I think that this moment is yet another example of the PLA’s growing capabilities, and their willingness to use them,” he said.

Taiwan has long had its own indigenous UAV programme but has vowed to beef up its drone and anti-drone capabilities since seeing Ukraine’s success with the military hardware against Russia.

Earlier this year, President Tsai inaugurated a government-run drone R&D facility in response to an unpredictable international political climate. The nation has also announced it will buy four MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones and step up its radars and defence systems.

Taiwan has also announced hefty increases in its annual military budget and the United States, Taipei’s largest arms supplier, recently approved the sale of more than $1.1 billion of military equipment, including anti-ship missiles and surveillance radar.

This week, China’s Foreign Ministry accused the US of interfering in internal Chinese affairs, after the Senate Foreign Relations committee approved a new bill that could significantly increase American support for Taiwan, providing billions of dollars in defence funding.

But Taipei faces an enormous challenge to match China’s production capacity and weight of numbers.

One of the tactics the military is turning to is jamming technology provided by a local company, DronesVision, which can block out global navigation satellite systems and video transmission signals, forcing the drone to land or return to its pilot.

“We do have many military camp sites we need to protect,” said a company spokesperson. “We have been threatened by China since I was little. I’m proud and happy to see our products deployed out there.”

Military experts say Taiwan and the US should boost their focus on drone technology both as a deterrent against an invasion across the Strait and to respond with strength.

“Unmanned systems are a good way of countering the aggressive actions we see China taking in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait,” said Brandon Tseng, a former Navy Seal and president of Shield AI, a defence technology company building AI pilots for aircraft.

But he warned the US and its allies were falling behind China in deploying drone technology as the next front of warfare, particularly in the development of intelligent unmanned systems and “critically enabled” technology that can operate when communications go down.

“The conflicts of the next 10-20 years are not going to be about how fast your drone is, or about what kind of weapons your drone carries or how long they can fly, it’s going to be about how intelligent they are,” said Mr Tseng. “China is taking those steps already to aggressively move forward.”

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