Taiwan’s drone pilots don’t wait for Trump’s help
While President Trump hesitates to maintain U.S. support for Taiwan in favor of warming ties with China,Taiwanese civilians have been learning from Ukraine and training on drones - just in case.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan – Houcunyan Airfield, a riverside park about an hour’s drive from Taipei, is one of the most popular places where drone pilots go to train. One afternoon in May, with heat and humidity drawing out mosquitoes, Lee Ding-Yu and his student, who is a photographer, were training at Houcunyan Airfield. “He’s taking the exam tomorrow,” Ding-Yu said, pointing at his student. “I brought all the drone batteries here so that he can practice as long as he wants.”
The sound of drones drowns out everything else, resembling the sounds of a modern war. Others in the park can barely hear one another speak.
During President Trump’s most recent visit to Beijing, he referred to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip,” also mentioning in an interview with Fox that he is thinking about whether to approve the latest arms sales to Taiwan, raising questions about a broader American foreign policy shift favorable toward China despite its threats to invade Taiwan.
The timing of his statements potentially violates President Reagan’s Six Assurances to Taiwan, passed in 1982, promising that the U.S. will not consult with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on arms sales, and will not pressure Taiwan to negotiate with Beijing.
On May 21, the U.S. acting Navy Secretary, Hung Cao, told senators that U.S. arms shipments to Taiwan have been paused due to the Iran War. But with drone technology dominating modern warfare, training to operate drones has become a key survival skill.
Although Trump claimed that he didn’t make any commitment to China during their meeting, he also said the U.S. doesn’t want to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war. When asked about the decision to pause the arms sale to Taiwan, he told reporters that he will speak to the president of Taiwan about the weapons package.
Amidst this U.S. hesitation to provide support to the island, Taiwanese civilians are taking it upon themselves to prepare for the worst case scenario. If Taiwan loses support from the U.S., it could devastate a nation preparing to defend itself against one of the strongest militaries in the world. Democratic allies in the Indo-Pacific could face stronger aggression from China, further emboldening autocracy in the region.
Ding-Yu used to be a daily news reporter for United Daily News in Taipei, where he followed the emerging drone industry in Taiwan closely. After studying English in university and working as a reporter for almost 20 years, he never thought he would become a drone trainer.
He has always been good at literature, but has a special knack for electronics and mechanics. His first job was as a PCB layout engineer, which he said was “too boring,” not knowing at the time that it would propel him toward his second career in the drone space.
While maintaining his full-time job as a reporter, Ding-Yu started practicing using different kinds of drones to gather video footage. It’s not that he was actively preparing for an imminent Chinese invasion. In fact, he just found flying drones and learning their capabilities entertaining. In 2025, he became a certified professional drone trainer in Taiwan, a civilian role separate from the Taiwanese army.
“If China attacked one day, we might be conscripted,” Ding-Yu joked He is one of nearly 35,000 certified drone pilots, though professional trainers like him are fewer than 3,000. Though he approached the idea of a war on his turf playfully, Ding-Yu has a patriotic heart: “It would be my duty to serve the country.”
The Taiwanese have been learning from Ukraine’s tactics in its fight against Russia, especially how drone technology has been dominating the battlefield. This style of warfare aligns with the asymmetric warfare strategy that Taiwan would deploy to counter a possible Chinese invasion.
Last November, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-Te announced an eight-year special defense budget of $40 billion USD, not only to meet President Trump’s expectation that allies raise their defense budgets, but also to strengthen Taiwan’s defense capabilities and build a military supply chain that does not rely on China.
The special budget had been stuck in Congress for six months and finally passed on May 8, but in a crippled form. The opposing parties cut the budget down to $24 billion, slashing the drone development spending and drone countermeasure procurement for the military.
The new, reduced version of the bill only specifies arms purchases from the United States, including an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan announced last December, meaning that Taiwan’s defense will lack self-made modern technology and become more dependent.
Ding-Yu remembered watching a video of a drone that was carrying a bomb flying over the battlefield in Ukraine when he realized he had just witnessed the future of battlefields before his eyes. He was curious about its path and fascinated by what happened next.
“The drone dropped the bomb itself. I was shocked,” said Ding-Yu.
That image stayed in Ding-Yu’s head for a long time and would eventually lead him to become a professional drone trainer in Taiwan.
The Taiwanese government, at the same time, has been building demand and expanding drone usage across the public sector, such as agriculture, policing, and land surveying.
“I have trained some firefighters and cops,” said Ding-Yu. “For example, I helped the firefighters to use drones to find where the fire started or how to get into the building if the entrance was blocked.”
The training experience for Ding-Yu is not much different from reporting daily news. When he was a crime reporter, he had to find the locations of dead bodies. He wished he had a drone for searching. “I had to get so close that I could smell it,” said Ding-Yu.
Ding-Yu loved his job in journalism until he was transferred to cover politics. “It was exhausting. I had to write and take photos all by myself.” He complained, but it was then he found his new passion.
“I realized photos are two-dimensional, but with a drone I can make it three-dimensional,” Ding-Yu said.
Disasters such as floods and fires mimic the conditions of war enough to practice reconnaissance with drones, but many in the field only know how to operate drones on a basic level without knowing how much a drone can accomplish.
Compared to real wars, the current training in the military is unrealistic, said Huang Jheng-Jie, a former firefighter and now a certified drone pilot. Most people are aiming to get the drone-operator certificate. They can fly, but they don’t know where to fly.
Jheng-Jie believes the current training offered by the government could be improved to unveil the full capabilities of these drones. “It’s like driving a car,” he said. “All the firefighters know how to drive a car. But not all of them know how to use it to help the team get into the fire building safely.”
Though China has not yet waged war on Taiwan, servicemen from the military realized they need to improve . Both Ding-Yu and Jheng-Jie have trained not only civilians to operate drones but soldiers, too.
Depending on the brigade, internal training doesn’t satisfy the soldiers. That’s when civilian training comes in.
Jheng-Jie, who served the country as a firefighter for 13 years, believes one should always prepare for a rainy day. He thinks the country doesn’t have enough drone operators, which he sees as a massive opportunity for business. “We can’t stop training, and we can’t stop innovating [drones],” he said.
That roughly $15 billion cut from the Cabinet’s original proposal includes major reductions in drone-related funding. Kuomintang congresswoman Ma Wen-chun claimed government drone procurements in recent years are “bad”(不好用), criticizing domestically-made Taiwanese drones for having a bad reputation.
Jheng-Jie has a different point of view. “Foreign drones, even American ones, sometimes have trouble ‘adapting’ in Taiwan,” he said. “For example, the communication systems aren’t always the same.”
Hence, the best path forward is to develop Taiwan’s own drone systems. “You can’t rely on other countries all the time. Or your drones won’t be able to catch up with the newest technology.”
Taiwan’s military drone development could be hit hard without enough budget from the government to support it. Ding-Yu, though, remains positive. “The defense minister is finding his way out,” he said, emphasizing that drones are the trend. ”It doesn’t affect the civilians who want to learn.”
The more people who learn to operate the tech, the bigger the demand for production can be. Ding-Yu is devoted to building a bigger drone training market. He is a member of the Drone Advancement Association, which is hosting a ‘Drone Soccer Game’ in New Taipei City at the end of May. “We saw China hosting these games, and we believe it’s a good chance to involve kids practicing drones since they were young,” Ding-Yu said.
Drone Soccer Game
Due to data security concerns, the Executive Yuan, the highest administrative department in Taiwan, announced in 2020 the prohibition of using Chinese drones interfacing with civil service systems, including the most popular Chinese drone, DJI.
Following the government ban on DJI, Ding-Yu’s students from the public sector are looking to use drones that aren’t from China, or preferably, Taiwan-made drones. “I was told they had to smash and destroy all the DJI drones,” he told The Counteroffensive. “They don’t want any government data to leak.”
But using DJI drones does have some advantages. DJI drones occupy 70 percent of the global market, and with bulk production, the prices are very competitive and the quality is high. .
Ding-Yu operated a DJI drone and compared it with other Taiwanese-branded drones. “It’s more stable in the positioning mode,” he said, meaning that it’s easier for rookies to learn for recreational use.
Jheng-Jie believes that Taiwan can create competitive drones if it takes lessons from Chinese ones.
Before the war in Ukraine,only a few Taiwanese companies persistently built anti-China drones — it was more of an ideology. The goal of making “anti-China” drones is to produce drones without parts or assemblies from China, secure the military source supply chain, and avoid confidential data breaches.
The CEO of Carbon-Based Technology Inc, Stacy Yu, is proud to say that anti-China technology is in the company’s DNA, but it was hard to expand in the past few years due to high cost.
But for drone companies that are trying to build technology to protect Taiwanese interests, the biggest challenge is coming from inside Taiwan. “We couldn’t get the orders from the defense department because the budget bill was on hold,” said Stacy Yu. “We still have to rely on the foreign market.”
The U.S. arms sales package includes thousands of American drones. If Trump withdraws the deal, Taiwan will lose its most important “anti-China” supply before the domestic drone supply chain becomes solid.
As these companies strive to survive in the market, they also face baseless accusations. Stacy Yu wrote on Facebook that the opposing parties are smearing her company as benefiting from the ruling party to make a fortune. “It is unacceptable!” wrote Stacy.
When asked whether Taiwanese drones could give them an advantage on the battlefield if China invades, Ding-Yu fell quiet. “No one wants a war,” he said. Even though he believes that the chance of a war with China remains low, the reality is hard to predict.
The best way forward is for Taiwan to enhance itself and, even better, to learn from its enemies. Ding-Yu reminisced about his visit to Shenzhen, China, where he ordered bubble tea delivered by a drone. “That’s a good idea,” Ding-Yu said, pointing out that Taiwan could copy from China to build a bigger market for its domestic drones.
Both the Taiwanese government and civilians are trying to build resilience for a potential Chinese invasion. The challenges can’t be overcome in a short time, and never has the U.S. president’s stance on Taiwan felt so consequential.
Interested in topics about Taiwan? Take a deep dive into some of our related coverage.
How China would cut Taiwan off
The ‘Red Beaches’ of a Taiwan invasion
Taiwan stinky tofu stalls hit by Iran war shock
Editor’s Note: This is our monthly supplemental issue on Taiwan!
We believe that empathy and authoritarianism can’t mix – that when we tell deeply-reported human stories of people threatened by dictators, it compels people to act against injustice.
Agree with us? Upgrade now to support our work.
NEWS OF THE DAY:
By Anastasia Lutsenko
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
ROYAL AIR FORCE JET WITH UK DEFSEC JAMMED OVER RUSSIAN BORDER: UK Defence Secretary John Healey was aboard a Royal Air Force jet, when the aircraft had its GPS signal jammed while flying near the Russian border. This happened after Healey visited British troops in Estonia, the Times reported. The pilots were forced to switch to an alternative navigation system during the three-hour flight, and Russia is believed to be behind the interference, according to reports.
Last month, Russian fighter jets dangerously intercepted an RAF surveillance aircraft over the Black Sea. A Russian aircraft flew close enough to disable the plane’s autopilot, while another made several passes, some just six metres from the aircraft’s nose. Similar GPS jamming also affected a plane carrying former Defence Secretary Grant Shapps in 2024.
NATO GENSEC’S UKRAINE INITIATIVE HAS FAILED: The UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Canada have reportedly blocked a NATO proposal that would require member states to spend at least 0.25% of GDP annually on military aid for Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the initiative failed to gain unanimous support, which is necessary for approval within NATO.
Several countries are already spending over 0.25% on military aid for Ukraine, this includes the Netherlands, Poland, and Nordic and Baltic states. These members backed the initiative. While the UK remains one of Ukraine’s largest military supporters after the U.S. and Germany, its contribution is still below the proposed target, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledging around 0.1% of GDP annually. France, Spain, Italy, and Canada also contribute less proportionally than many smaller NATO allies.
UKRAINIAN INTEL UNCOVERS RUSSIA’S “GERAN-4” JET DRONE: Defence Intelligence of Ukraine has published a detailed analysis of Russia’s new “Geran-4” jet-powered strike drone, including a 3D model, components, and technical specifications. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia developed the drone as a countermeasure against the growing effectiveness of Ukrainian interceptor drones. The “Geran-4” has a turbojet engine, allowing it to maneuver at speeds of 300–400 km/h and reach a top speed of up to 500 km/h. The drone can carry warheads weighing up to 90 kg over distances of up to 450 km.
Ukrainian intelligence identified two Chinese-made engines used in the drone, stressing that restricting Russia’s access to foreign technology is essential to limiting its military capabilities. This comes after Western components were recently found in a missile which attacked Kyiv.
UKRAINIAN COMPANY LAUNCHES SECURE AI MODEL: Ukraine has launched a new AI assistant called Lapathoniia, built on domestic large language models and hosted entirely within Ukrainian data centers. According to the AI developers, all user data stays inside Ukraine and is not transferred to foreign servers, strengthening control and security over Ukrainian data.
The platform is still in closed beta testing, with developers collecting feedback to improve performance and usability, and access is currently granted upon request.
DOG OF PEACE:
Today’s dog of peace is this cute Dalmatian. We saw him on a crowded street, waiting alone for his owner. The owner came quickly to pick him up. He seems to be with a happy family!
Stay safe out there.
Best,
Elaine
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