As Ukraine’s Good Student, Taiwan is Stockpiling Drones To Face China

Aware of its weaponry inferiority, Taiwan is inviting now commercial drone companies to invest in the Island to catch up, wrote a Reuters special report based on a Taiwanese internal report presented to President Tsai Ing-wen.
Last summer, the president gathered the ruling party’s members to analyze the uneven conflict situation between China and Taiwan. The fulcrum point was drones, as stated by the report.
“Since the war began, Ukraine, which was previously considered as lacking air supremacy, cleverly used drones to create its own partial air supremacy,” according to the same source.
Taiwan presently possesses four types of drones and a fleet of “hundreds,” according to two persons with firsthand knowledge and a separate internal security report.
The aim is to build more than 3,200 military drones by mid-2024. These will include mini drones that weigh less than two kilograms as well as larger surveillance craft with a range of 150 kilometers.
Responding to queries about this report, China’s foreign ministry stated that “Taiwan authorities’ attempts to reject reunification with force and seek independence with foreigners are certain to fail.”
Unlike Taiwan, China began mass-producing drones prior to the crisis in Ukraine. The PLA drone program began in the 1960s, with the construction of the Chang Kong-1 (Vast Sky), a radio-controlled unmanned target aircraft inspired by former Soviet-supplied models.
According to some estimates, China now has a near monopoly of the global commercial drone market, accounting for around 80% of sales.