Brandi Vincent
The Albatross II attack and surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drone developed by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) and its American partner, is on display at the Taipei Aerospace & Defense Technology Exhibition 2025 (TADTE), in Taipei, Taiwan, on September 19, 2025. (Photo by Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Taiwan is strategically moving to expand its arsenal of military and commercial drones, as China mobilizes and modernizes its forces with aims to be ready to seize its smaller, self-governing neighbor as early as 2027.
During a panel hosted by the Center for a New American Security on Tuesday, defense experts discussed Taiwan’s unfolding plans to grow its domestic production pipelines for unmanned aerial systems and its military’s adoption of associated, emerging weapons technologies. They also shed light on ways recent U.S. initiatives, as well as the Russia-Ukraine war, are informing those pursuits.
“China now has the dominance of the supply on a lot of different components that are used in drones,” said Hong-Lun Tiunn, a nonresident fellow at the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology.
“So that is very critical for Taiwan, for us to actually start gradually building up a non-reliant supply chain [and] to basically make sure that — way before the contingency happens — we already have the capacities to manufacture enough and good quality components and drone models that can be integrated into our layered defense strategy,” Tiunn noted.
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Although the Chinese government sees the island as a piece of its territory, Taiwan has been self-ruled for more than 75 years.
Tensions between Beijing and Taipei have intensified in the last decade, and particularly since Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled his intent to ensure that the People’s Liberation Army would be prepared and equipped to “unify” or invade its smaller neighbor by 2027.
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