Chinese drones are everywhere! Taiwan and the US are collaborating to build a drone army as part of their strategy to stop relying on Chinese supply chain. A US group consisting of 26 producers of drones and anti-drone systems, officials from the Commerce Department, and the Pentagon´s Defense Innovation Unit and Dev Shenoy - the leader of Defense Department´s Microelectronics Research and Engineering - had arrived in Taipei last Sunday to meet with Taiwanese military officials and industry counterparts to discuss finding non-Chinese component suppliers and manufacturers.  

Wellington Koo, Taiwan´s Defense Minister claims that this cooperation is an opportunity for Taiwan to become part of the US supply chain and do co-production. Koo adds: `As the US is putting such emphasis on removing China from supply chains and because drones can be dual-use products, a lot of other players will have to integrate their supply chains´.

The meeting witnessed several leading manufacturing companies such as AeroVironment, from which Taiwan has bought more than 700 sets of the Switchblade suicide drone, and Dedrone, counter-drone systems provider and supporter of the Taiwanese market.  

Taiwan is the leading manufacturer of electronic components and machine tools. However, The country is microscopic compared to China´s gigantic drone production. Consequently, Taiwan´s Defense Ministry is pumping a $210 million (around Є189 million) sum into private companies like Taiwan UAV, the oldest drone producer in the country, and Coretronic Intelligent Robotics to support the `Drone National Team´ with different types of drone technology.

Wellington Koo insists on joining the internationl supply chains to produce more quantity. If not, then Taiwan´s drone industry will not have enough scale.