Taiwan is trying to promote a domestic drone industry. TaiwanPlus sat down with Kuan-Ting Chen, a legislator for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, who says drone production with a secure supply chain is vital to Taiwan's future defense.
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00:00How important is it for Taiwan to have an AI drone industry?
00:05It's very important the threats we are facing right now, the challenges we are confronting right now.
00:10The Chinese PLA have millions of drones available if they should start any conflicts in the Taiwan Strait.
00:22So we need to have AI driven drones to balance or at least to make sure we can deter China from their aggressions.
00:34At the moment around 90% of components needed to produce drones can be made in Taiwan,
00:41but that still leaves around 10%, some of which may be sourced from China.
00:48So how can Taiwan reach its goal of a non-red supply chain?
00:57Our ministries of national defence have proven to be very good evidence that we are on the right track.
01:07So usually we purchase like 110% more than we reserve.
01:13So the reason why we do that is to make sure that we check every single UAV,
01:20check as many as possible, like say 10% of the drones,
01:23to deter the manufacturers from trying to disguise as Taiwanese-made drones.
01:30So this 10% is one of the evidence that our departments, our ministries are trying very hard to make sure the supply chain is non-red.
01:41Even though that means we have to pay more, even though that means there are not many economic incentives to do so,
01:50but for national security, this is something we have to sacrifice.
01:54How big a player internationally do you think Taiwan can become?
01:59As a member of National Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee, I think I am targeting Taiwan's own market first.
02:06The very reason, I mean, we could definitely sell our drones for civic purposes to our allies in Japan,
02:15in the Philippines, in the United States, etc.
02:17But we are facing a challenge like never before, right?
02:22We are the one who is confronting China, another superpower.
02:27But as a responsible international player, I think we have moral responsibility and strategic reason to support Ukraine to win the war.
02:37The very reason is they are using the drones against much bigger opponents, right?
02:44The much larger scale aggressors like Russia, right?
02:49And they successfully sustained for three years, three and a half years.
02:54At the very beginning of the war stage, President Zelensky was saying we should produce one million.
03:00That was their goal, and then two million, and then three million, and now it's four million.
03:05So if they can do that, so can we.