Taiwan's Anti-Drone Defenses Completely Overwhelmed by China's Latest Drones

Sensor Studio

Taiwan’s anti-drone defense network just hit a major snag—turns out, it can’t detect China’s latest drones! Dive into the wild world of military tech fails, budget woes, and how Taiwan is scrambling to keep up with rapid changes. Curious about the future of drone warfare? Watch now, subscribe to stay in the loop, and drop a comment on what surprised you most! #Taiwan #military #drones #defense #technology  👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@센서스튜디오  0:00 - Introduction to Taiwan's Drone Defense Issues 0:58 - Technical Gaps in Anti-Drone Systems 1:37 - Official Responses and Ongoing Criticism 2:50 - Canceled Procurement and Broader Defense Challenges 4:24 - Reserve Forces and Equipment Shortages 5:43 - Government Efforts to Strengthen Drone Capabilities 6:52 - Future Challenges and Urgency for Reforms

Transcript

00:00Another serious problem has been revealed in Taiwan's military procurement system.

00:03It turns out that Taiwan's ambitious anti-drone defense network failed to detect the Chinese military's new drones.

00:09According to a report by the Hong Kong South China Morning Post, citing a report from Taiwan's audit office,

00:13significant flaws have been found in Taiwan's drone defense project.

00:15This project was developed by Taiwan's largest weapons development institute,

00:18the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology,

00:21with about 3.55 billion Taiwan dollars invested, which is roughly 157 billion Korean won.

00:26This system was established to detect drones approaching Taiwanese air force bases and major military facilities,

00:30and to neutralize them by jamming their signals.

00:32However, during the audit process, it was found that this defense network has issues responding properly

00:36to certain frequencies used by the Chinese military's new drones.

00:39In particular, it was revealed that it could not detect or jam the 5.1 gigahertz frequency band.

00:43As the Chinese military expands its drone operations using frequency bands different from those previously used,

00:48Taiwan's defense system is unable to fully cover all of these areas.

00:52Concerns have been raised because the system Taiwan built with a massive budget

00:54is currently unable to properly respond to some of the Chinese military's new unmanned drones.

00:58It has also been confirmed that the system cannot respond to certain frequency bands

01:01used by China's Beidou-3 satellite navigation system.

01:04Considering that satellite navigation signals can be used to manage the flight and location information of drones,

01:09the ability to respond to specific satellite navigation bands

01:11can also be an important element of an anti-drone defense system.

01:14Taiwan's audit office also pointed out that improvements are needed in the current system in this regard.

01:18A bigger issue that was pointed out is the ability to respond to drones operated in new ways.

01:23As a result of the audit, it was found that there are few or no countermeasures

01:26against fiber-optic-guided drones and AI-guided drones.

01:28This is why there are concerns that the current defense systems,

01:31which are built to counter drones using traditional radio waves,

01:33are not sufficient to respond to new types of unmanned aerial vehicles.

01:37The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense also expressed its views on these concerns.

01:40Spokesman Sunday Lai Feng of the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense

01:42explained that the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology

01:45has already confirmed its ability to jam new frequencies.

01:47He also stated that they plan to add this capability through future system upgrades.

01:50The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense also explained that some of the technologies

01:53pointed out in the audit have only emerged since the project began in 2021.

01:57They explained that because China's drone technology has rapidly evolved

01:59during the design and development process of the project,

02:01it is necessary to add new features to the existing system.

02:03However, criticism continues despite the explanation from the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense.

02:08Luo Qingcheng, the executive director of the Taiwan International Strategic Studies Association,

02:11expressed that he was very disappointed with the ministry's explanation.

02:14He pointed out that even though the project has just been completed,

02:16there is no detailed explanation about when the actual improvements will begin

02:19and when they will be finished.

02:21He especially raised concerns about how Taiwan would compensate

02:23for its current lack of response capabilities

02:25if the Chinese military were to take actual military action

02:28during the period when Taiwan is upgrading its systems.

02:31The main point being raised in this controversy is that

02:33although Taiwan has already recognized the need to respond to new threats,

02:36it has not clearly indicated how much time will actually be needed before it can be fielded.

02:39Military systems must go through development, testing,

02:42performance verification, and deployment processes,

02:44so adding new features does not mean they can be immediately fielded for operations.

02:48The growing concerns within Taiwan are also due to these realistic time constraints.

02:51Currently, Taiwan can be considered quite vulnerable to large-scale drone attacks from China.

02:55In fact, the Taiwanese Army's separate procurement project

02:57for 26 fixed anti-drone systems was also cancelled last month.

03:00The scale of this project was about 980 million Taiwan dollars,

03:03which is roughly 40 billion.

03:05Korean won the problem was that the equipment they tried to introduce

03:07failed to meet the military's performance standards three times.

03:10It is reported that the Taiwanese authorities pushed to terminate the contract

03:12because the equipment failed the performance test three times.

03:15The significance of this project is that Taiwan was trying to secure

03:17additional defense systems to counter the threat of Chinese drones.

03:19This issue arose during the process of trying to secure those systems.

03:22With concerns already raised about problems in the existing defense systems,

03:25the fact that even the separately pursued anti-drone equipment

03:28failed to pass performance verification

03:29is increasing worries about the Taiwanese military's ability to respond to drones.

03:33What matters more than simply purchasing equipment

03:34is whether it has the level of performance required for actual military operations,

03:37but in this project, that standard was not met.

03:39In particular, China, which Taiwan faces,

03:41is a country with world-class drone manufacturing capabilities.

03:43Chinese companies hold a very high market share

03:45not only in military drones, but also in the civilian drone market.

03:48Chinese products are widely used in the global civilian drone market,

03:51and China has developed flight control technology

03:52and various component industries for drones over a long period of time.

03:55Naturally, this industrial foundation can also be used

03:57for the development of military unmanned aerial vehicles.

03:59If the Chinese military operates large numbers of drones against Taiwan,

04:02the Taiwanese military will have to detect and identify

04:03each unmanned aerial vehicle and then deploy appropriate countermeasures

04:06according to the situation.

04:07However, if the necessary anti-drone equipment has not been sufficiently secured

04:10or if the purchased equipment has not even completed performance verification,

04:12the likelihood of problems arising during the defense process increases significantly.

04:15Especially in situations where many drones approach simultaneously from multiple directions,

04:18not only the performance of individual equipment,

04:20but also the quantity and deployment of the overall defense system,

04:22as well as tactics and strategy, become important.

04:25However, it appears that Taiwan is not prepared for this at all.

04:27The problem is, it would actually be fortunate

04:28if the Taiwanese military's issues were limited to just Taiwan's drone defense network.

04:31The Taiwanese Audit Office has revealed

04:32that the Taiwanese reserve forces are facing a serious shortage of equipment.

04:34As a result of an audit by the Taiwanese government,

04:37it was revealed that the Taiwanese reserve forces are seriously lacking in equipment,

04:40and the overall readiness of the units is only at 70%.

04:42According to a report released by the Taiwanese Audit Office in 2025,

04:45the equipment availability rate in four areas,

04:47combat engineering equipment, communications, surveillance, and medical support,

04:50has reportedly fallen below 60%.

04:51The Taiwanese military reserves are largely divided into three groups,

04:54frontline coastal defense units,

04:56urban defense units for deep areas and cities,

04:58and critical infrastructure protection units.

04:59However, it turns out that all of them are lacking equipment.

05:01In particular, the critical infrastructure protection units have reportedly secured

05:04only 63.91% of the necessary equipment.

05:07If you look at it in more detail, the situation is even worse.

05:09Only 7% of the reserve units' vehicle requirements have been met

05:12through direct purchase or mobilization plans.

05:14Combat engineer equipment is available at 52.49% communication equipment,

05:17at 36.14% surveillance equipment,

05:19at 36.71%, and only 43.26% of the medical support systems are usable.

05:23The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense explained that the shortage of reserve weapons

05:26is due to equipment delays.

05:27Still, it's a problem.

05:28What are they going to do if China invades now?

05:29The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense also pointed out that one of the reasons

05:32for the equipment support issue is the relocation of the 205th Weapons Factory,

05:35which produces a significant portion of the weapon systems used by the Taiwanese military.

05:39This factory was originally scheduled to be completed by 2023,

05:42but it has been delayed by three years.

05:43Of course, Taiwan is not ignoring the threat of Chinese drones.

05:46On the contrary, the Taiwanese government and military have recently regarded drones

05:48as a new key military capability,

05:50and are significantly increasing their investment in this area.

05:52As China's drone capabilities rapidly develop,

05:55Taiwan has also decided that it needs to strengthen both its attack drones

05:57and anti-drone systems.

05:58The Taiwanese parliament recently approved a plan to allocate a large budget

06:01to the military sector, including drone and anti-drone capabilities.

06:05According to reports, the budget related to drone defense alone amounts to about

06:0863.4 billion New Taiwan Dollars.

06:11This shows that Taiwan recognizes the threat of drones as an ongoing military challenge.

06:15Taiwan's approach is not just to rely on purchasing equipment from foreign countries.

06:18They are expanding their own domestic production capabilities for drones

06:20and accelerating the development of various unmanned systems

06:22that the military can operate directly.

06:24Recently, during the Han Kuang military exercise,

06:26the Taiwanese military unveiled a medium-sized attack drone,

06:29showing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in actual military training.

06:31This means that the Taiwanese military is expanding the use of drones

06:34from being just auxiliary equipment to deploying them in various missions

06:36such as reconnaissance, attack, and surveillance.

06:38There is a clear reason why Taiwan is securing its own production capabilities.

06:40This is because if the possibility of military conflict with China increases,

06:43it could take time to order and receive the necessary equipment from foreign countries.

06:46If they have sufficient production capabilities of their own,

06:49they can quickly secure the necessary quantities

06:50and produce additional units to match losses that occur on the battlefield.

06:53Especially for drones, since many of them are consumed during combat,

06:56it's more important to be able to quickly produce additional units in a crisis

06:59than how many you have in peacetime.

07:00However, there is a challenge that Taiwan needs to solve here.

07:03Securing new drone capabilities and supplementing existing defense systems

07:06are two different issues.

07:07Even if you have the ability to mass-produce attack drones,

07:10if you don't have enough systems to detect and respond to enemy drones,

07:12there could still be vulnerabilities in defending military facilities.

07:15On the other hand, even if you secure anti-drone equipment,

07:18if you don't deploy enough of them on the battlefield and continuously improve their performance,

07:22it will be difficult to achieve the expected results.

07:24Therefore, Taiwan needs to develop not only its drone production capabilities,

07:27but also a comprehensive counter-drone system that includes detection, tracking,

07:31electronic warfare, and interception.

07:33Whenever China develops a new drone, Taiwan must quickly apply counter-technologies,

07:36and it is also necessary to repeatedly verify whether the newly acquired equipment

07:39works properly in real military environments.

07:41Since Taiwan has now begun large-scale investments,

07:43what matters is not the size of the budget itself,

07:45but how quickly this budget can be converted into actual military capability.

07:49However, one of the reasons many people are concerned

07:51is that weaknesses within the Taiwanese military continue to be reported.

07:53If these weaknesses accumulate one by one,

07:55they could become a factor leading to defeat in war.

07:57Therefore, when these weaknesses are reported,

07:59I think they need to be addressed immediately.

08:01Otherwise, if China really invades, Taiwan could be easily breached.

Category

Transcript

Recommended