Taiwan and U.S. Work to Counter China’s Drone Dominance

Officials hope that Taiwan can become a bigger player in the supply chain for drones, a move that would also help blunt any threats posed to the island by China.

Spurred by worries about China’s strength in mass-producing drones, American and Taiwanese companies and government officials are working to join forces in making the air and sea vehicles that could be crucial to defending Taiwan.

Several days of discussions in Taiwan, set to finish on Wednesday and held largely away from public view, brought more than two dozen American companies that make drones and anti-drone technologies together with Taiwanese firms looking for American knowledge and customers.

The trade mission, organized by the U.S. International Trade Administration, was the latest indication of how Washington and Taipei have been jolted by China’s position as the world’s biggest maker of commercial drones. Military drones hold the potential to erode Taiwan’s defenses against possible incursions or an attack by China, which claims the island as its territory. Taiwan plans to expand its military drone numbers to blunt that risk.

Taiwanese officials hope that their island can become a bigger player in the supply chain for drones for the United States and allied countries, echoing Taiwan’s success in producing advanced semiconductors. U.S. officials hope to reduce American reliance on Chinese-made drones and components by tapping Taiwan’s manufacturing strengths. Both sides are drawing on lessons from the battlefields of Ukraine and other war zones, where drones have become important for mounting attacks and monitoring enemy forces.

“They have certain capabilities, and they’re coming to find out about our capabilities,” Taiwan’s minister of defense, Wellington Koo, told reporters in Taipei last week, referring to the U.S. drone delegation. “We can become part of the international supply chain.”

The U.S. delegation included representatives from Northrop Grumman, a big military equipment supplier, as well as companies offering undersea drones, drone detection equipment and other innovations in unmanned aerial vehicles, or U.A.V.s. U.S. defense officials accompanied the delegation, according to Taiwanese news reports.

“Industrial cooperation between the United States and Taiwan is critical to developing supply chain security for a whole range of technologies,” the press office of the American Institute in Taiwan — Washington’s de facto embassy in Taipei — said in a statement.

But hurdles could slow, even stymie, some of Taiwan’s ambitions for a bigger role in designing and manufacturing drones with the United States and its allies. The United States produces most of its military drones, through defense contractors.

Without more government support, Taiwan’s small manufacturers may find it difficult to draw enough funding to increase production, and they must navigate stringent security checks for supplying parts for U.S. military drones, said Chen Kuan-ting, a Taiwanese lawmaker from Chiayi, an area that is building production and testing sites for airborne technology.

U.S. policymakers may be leery of depending too much on Taiwan for drone parts. Some worry about industrial secrets leaking to China. If Taiwan were to come under a Chinese blockade or attack, American drone makers could lose flows of vital components.

“Security and intellectual property risks are real but manageable with the right safeguards,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research institute in Washington. “Cooperation with Taiwan is crucial, but it needs to be part of a broader strategy that includes shifting some production to more secure locations. This way, the U.S. can benefit from Taiwan’s capabilities without overexposing itself to geopolitical risks.”

Still, the shared worries about China’s military technology are likely to keep driving U.S. and Taiwanese companies toward more collaboration. “Deepening defense industry cooperation between us can send the right message to the Chinese Communist Party: don’t rashly launch a war against Taiwan,” Hsu Yen-pu, a Taiwanese vice minister for defense, told a U.S.-Taiwan defense industry conference in Philadelphia on Monday, according to a transcript shared by the Taiwanese defense ministry.

China’s military drones have become an increasingly common sight in the skies near Taiwan, and they have made flights circling Taiwan’s main island, according to Taiwan’s ministry of defense. China dominates commercial drone sales in the United States and across much of the world, led by DJI, which says it holds 70 percent of the global market. Despite Taiwan’s icy political relations with China, DJI drones are similarly popular with Taiwanese consumers.

“DJI drones — I think it’s best to think about them as Huawei with wings,” Mr. Singleton said in a recent presentation, likening DJI to China’s giant telecommunications company. “Through brute-force economics, the Chinese have established a Chinese champion that controls our current market.”

China’s market dominance makes it harder for Taiwanese drone companies to grow big enough to remain robust during slack times for military orders. Access to more American orders, both commercial and defense, could help overcome that.

“We understand the importance of supporting Taiwan’s own U.A.V. industry, and we believe partnerships can be structured in a way that benefits both sides,” René Carbone Bardorf, the vice president for marketing and communications at AeroVironment, a company on the trade mission, said in a statement. In June, the State Department gave the green light for AeroVironment to sell up to 720 Switchblade drones to Taiwan.

Taiwan’s ministry of defense said last year that it will acquire 7,700 drones in coming years. But turning to Taiwan for more and more parts could raise costs.

“To all of a sudden have these manufacturers move back to producing in Taiwan, we’ll have to see if there’s the determination to remove Chinese parts suppliers from the drone industry,” said Chen Kwan-ju, the chairman of Thunder Tiger, a Taiwanese firm that took part in the talks. “I think this really all comes down to the government’s attitude.”