00:00China has been carrying out regular missions with drones that could be used in a Taiwan Strait
00:04conflict. That's according to a report from Reuters. Flight data shows the drones often fly
00:10from China's southern Hainan province, heading east toward the Philippines and then south along
00:14Vietnam's coast. During the missions, China reportedly sends false signals that make the
00:19drones appear to be other aircraft. Analysts say these operations are part of Beijing's push to
00:24improve its electronic warfare and deception tactics in the event of a Chinese invasion of
00:30Taiwan. To find out how China's moves could affect the military surveillance capabilities of
00:36neighboring countries, our reporter Alan Liu spoke with Bryce Barrows, an associate fellow at Globesec.
00:42What do you think prompted China to conduct regular drone flights over South China Sea at this moment?
00:48To what extent are they linked to the tensions in the Taiwan Strait?
00:52So I think they're linked to tensions in the Taiwan Strait just by the nature of Taiwan having
00:57territory that is controlled by it in the South China Sea, for starters. So any sort of Taiwan,
01:04or rather any South China Sea contingency inherently would involve Taiwan just by the nature of having
01:11the islands that, or the territories rather, that Taiwan administers within the South China Sea.
01:18I think what might have prompted the desire to want to do more of these drone flights is the
01:22understanding that, and this came out obviously in the Reuters report earlier today, the desire for
01:28the PLA to, and also just China, to do more probing and see where they can sort of push the
01:36boundaries
01:37between blurring the line between a regular flight or sortie and something that would potentially come
01:44before an actual armed conflict, or blockade, or quarantine of Taiwan, or some of the islands
01:51in the South China Sea that don't necessarily involve Taiwan as well.
01:54By sending false transponder signals, how might this affect other countries' monitoring systems,
02:00systems, and what kind of confusion could it create?
02:03So that's a big problem obviously when it comes to monitoring, you know, China's so-called
02:08Blue Water Militia, but it's also an issue too because it will allow China to sort of create
02:14a lot more confusion related to where some of those deployments or, you know, amassing of different,
02:20you know, civilian and military ships or whatnot might be. So you're starting to see the same thing
02:27in the same sense with like aerial platforms as well. I think what is important to keep an eye out
02:33for related to that is what are ways that not just Taiwan, but also countries like Japan and the
02:39Philippines, which obviously have close maritime and air identification zones that, you know, overlap
02:46or are close to Taiwan, to be able to monitor some of these drones as well.
02:52How can other countries such as Taiwan better respond to or counter such deception tactics?
02:58Taiwan having its own sort of like ISR platforms that are also drones to monitor for other drones
03:04that might be in the facility is also really important as well. And even though it's obviously
03:09very difficult to spot a drone or some of the other aerial platforms that China is using to spoof
03:16around Taiwan, it's important to make sure that you're using every asset that's available to be able to
03:21do that. And that's why it's really important to invest in platforms that are larger or medium
03:27sized UAVs that have intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to be able to have
03:33better maritime domain awareness and also aerial domain awareness around the island as well.
03:40That was Bryce Barrows, an associate fellow at Globesec.
03:43We'll get back.
03:43We'll get back.
03:44Bye.
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