Taiwan flogs America drones “not made in China”

Andy Hsin, a manager at Coretronic, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, beams as he picks up a small black surveillance drone. “These are 100% zero-red,” he says. “Nothing made in China.” Mr Hsin’s company is already selling these “non-red” drones to American firefighters and other first responders. Next it is eyeing America’s border control. Taiwan’s government hopes that more companies will follow in its footsteps. It is trying to cultivate a domestic drone industry to both supply its own armed forces and capitalise on other countries’ distrust of China. It wants to become what Lai Ching-te, its president, calls the “Asian hub of UAV supply chains for global democracies”.

Taiwan’s drone ambitions began in 2022, when its then president, Tsai Ing-wen, saw the asymmetric advantage that drones gave Ukraine against Russia on the battlefield. American military officials have described a plan for Taiwan to similarly hold off a potential Chinese invasion by creating an “unmanned hellscape” of sea-and-air drones in the Taiwan Strait. To achieve that, Taiwan would need many more drones. It signed a deal to buy nearly 1,000 small attack drones from America in late 2024. But it is also trying to build its own. Since 2022 the government has built a new drone-research centre, subsidised local companies to develop AI imaging chips and flight controllers, and awarded $210m in drone-procurement contracts for Taiwan’s armed forces. It aims to produce 15,000 homemade drones a month by 2028.

Taiwan has the technological know-how to make a wide range of drones, from cheap, small suicide-drones like the ones used in Ukraine to more complex reconnaissance drones that are customised to take off from moving warships and withstand strong winds in the Taiwan Strait. Its main problem is not technology, but scale. China controls 80% of the global drone market, which means it can produce drones very cheaply. The non-red drones Coretronic makes cost about 25% more than their equivalent in China, says Mr Hsin. Taiwan’s electronics manufacturers need more orders from abroad so that they can scale up, says Lu Wen-Tsan, an official in Taiwan’s commerce ministry.

Geopolitical tensions have given Taiwan a chance to sell non-Chinese drones for sensitive uses. America has already banned the use of Chinese drones by its armed forces and federal agencies, and may soon implement a broader ban on some Chinese drone companies. China recently slapped sanctions on a dozen American drone companies, too.

But how many orders have Taiwan’s drone-makers actually got? Officials are cagey about the numbers, except to say they are not enough. The government has tried to help by boosting domestic procurement for its own armed forces and forming a “drone alliance” of companies to seek orders abroad. Coretronic’s Mr Hsin says his company made only about 1,000 drones in 2024, all for domestic customers, but expects to produce 4,000-5,000 in 2025, of which a third will be exported.

Moudy Hu, the head of the drone alliance, says Taiwan’s companies still need better vetting to make sure they are not secretly using Chinese components. For all the talk about non-red supply chains, only four Taiwanese companies have passed the stringent checks required for defence-ministry contracts. Many of the smaller companies supplying drone components still need to be inspected, he says.

Taiwan’s companies have also begun to worry about a potential non-red competitor: Ukraine. It is currently using thousands of drones a month in its fight against Russia and says its domestic industry can now produce 5m drones per year. If the war ends, where will those drones go? Some in Taiwan are debating whether they should “just buy Ukrainian drones and stockpile them”, says Hong-Lun Tiunn of DSET, a think-tank in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital.

Previous American administrations encouraged Taiwan to develop its drone industry in case of Chinese blockade or invasion. But it is unclear whether the new Trump administration will agree. Some Taiwanese companies are already trying to align with the MAGA vision. Thunder Tiger, a Taiwanese company that makes first-person-view attack drones, recently announced that it is planning to produce some key components in California. “America First” wasn’t part of Taiwan’s original drone-hub plan—but it will need American support to succeed. ■