Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) has begun releasing tracking data from long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for ongoing air and sea military training exercises and patrols in Taiwan.
Such activity is not new, Chinese military drones have previously entered Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), but the Ministry of Defense disclosed such details for the first time only on September 4, when a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) class Sichuan The Tenden TB001 reconnaissance UAV is part of a group of 45 aircraft flying in the Air Defense Identification Zone east and southwest of the centerline of the Taiwan Strait.
On September 9, a MALE-class Beihang drone BZK-005 was detected among 12 aircraft passing through the same area, followed by two different drone types – tactical-class Guizhou Aviation Aircraft Corporation (GAIC) BZK-007 and KVD-001 (a derivative of BZK-006) – Sept. 11.
On Sept. 15, the Ministry of Defense spotted two other drones — a BZK-007 and a GAIC WZ-7 — among 26 PLA aircraft tracked throughout the day. Although the latter has been tracked by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in the East China Sea in the past, it was the first time that it was active near Taiwan on that day.
The WZ-7, also known as Xianglong (Xianglong), is a high-altitude long-endurance (HALE)-class strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) UAV produced by state-controlled subsidiary GAIC. Commercial and defense aerospace major Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).
The WZ-7 was first shown to the public as a concept model at the 2006 China Airshow, and development is understood to have been completed around the mid-2010s. This type is considered the PLA Air Force’s primary high-altitude unmanned platform for conducting reconnaissance operations near strategic locations and is believed to be functionally similar to the US-built Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk HALE Roughly similar, but without the UAVs in terms of performance due to the known flaws of indigenous turbine engine technology.
The TB001 was also only recently deployed by the People’s Liberation Army Navy Air Force, and did not appear for the first time until August 2021, when the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) intercepted its flight chain in the direction of Ryukyu Island in the East China Sea.
The TB001 was developed by the private Sichuan Tengdeng Technology Company, which is believed to be affiliated with the 611 Research Institute of AVIC, also known locally as the “Twin-tailed Scorpion”, and made its maiden flight in March 2019.
Regular incursions of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone by Chinese aircraft and drones have escalated since U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Beijing in early August to claim the island’s self-governing island.
by Jr Ng
