TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan is seeking to cooperate with the US on drone technology following President Donald Trump’s call for Taipei to boost its defense spending, Nikkei Asia reported Friday.
Lee Wen-chung (李文忠), former head of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, suggested Taiwan focus on defense technology and military industries. “Instead of just buying weapons, we’ll also invest in our defense industrial base and incorporate Taiwanese drone production into the global supply chain,” he said.
Several developments under former US President Joe Biden have created favorable conditions for bilateral collaboration. Taiwan was listed as a member of the "friend-shoring" global network in the US National Defense Industrial Strategy released in January 2024. It also participated in the inaugural meeting of the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience in Hawaii in October.
President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) sees drones as a key component of Taiwan’s asymmetric defense strategy. Since 2023, the government has encouraged the production of dual-use drones for both peacetime and wartime applications.
The "Drone National Team" initiative, launched in 2022 to accelerate commercial and military drone development, aims to produce 15,000 drones per month domestically by 2028. To support this goal, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced plans in December to build a large-drone testing site in Chiayi's Yizhu Township. The site will include facilities for flight simulation, operation certification, and drone exhibitions.
However, Taiwan faces challenges in decoupling its supply chain from China, which dominates the drone industry. “What Taiwan needs now is markets and orders, and then there will be more production lines to manufacture drones,” Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told Nikkei.
Lin led a delegation to Lithuania in November to foster links between Taiwanese and Lithuanian drone companies. He said Taiwan is also enhancing drone cooperation with the US and Japan.
To facilitate international collaboration, Taiwan established the Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance last year. The alliance, consisting of over 100 companies, aims to share information and explore overseas business opportunities. It will participate in “Xponential Europe” from Tuesday to Thursday in Germany, showcasing technologies such as anti-drone systems, communication equipment, flight control chips, and drone payloads.
An Estonian defense industry delegation visited Taiwan earlier in February to discuss cooperation in the drone sector.
Despite these challenges, National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文) said, “In the future, the drones that we develop will purely come from our domestic supply chain.”
Since 2023, the government has prioritized the development of chips for flight control, communications, and positioning, as well as other drone-related functions, according to Nikkei.
