A leaked United States (US) military assessment says the Chinese military may soon deploy a high-altitude spy drone that travels at least three times the speed of sound, the Washington Post reported late on April 18.
The newspaper cited a secret document from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
The document, which Reuters could not confirm or verify independently, features satellite imagery dated August 9 that shows two WZ-8 rocket-propelled reconnaissance drones at an air base in eastern China, about 350 miles (560km) inland from Shanghai, according to the newspaper.
The US assessment said China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had “almost certainly” established its first unmanned aerial vehicle unit at the base, which falls under the Eastern Theater Command, the branch of the Chinese military responsible for enforcing Chinese sovereignty claims over Taiwan, the newspaper reported.
The Washington Post said it obtained the assessment of the program from a trove of images of classified files posted on the Discord messaging app, allegedly by a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, who was arrested last week.
The Defense Department declined to comment. China’s Ministry of National Defense did not respond.
The leaks first became widely known earlier this month, setting Washington on edge about the damage they may have caused. The episode embarrassed the US by revealing its spying on allies and purported Ukrainian military vulnerabilities.
Other documents in the trove detail a number of disclosures about Chinese spying and military modernisation, including intelligence that revealed the existence of additional Chinese spy balloons and an assessment that Taiwan is ill-prepared to prevent early Chinese air superiority during an invasion.
This latest revelation about the advancement comes as intensifying military aggression around Taiwan has heightened concern about a Chinese invasion on the self-governed island democracy.
CIA Director William J. Burns has said Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants the PLA to be capable of seizing Taiwan by 2027, although he added that this does not mean Xi will order an attack at that time.
Also included in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s assessment are possible flight paths for the drone as well as for the twin-engine H6-M Badger bomber used to launch it.
After taking off from its home air base, the warplane would fly to just off China’s east coast before releasing the stealthy drone, which could then enter Taiwanese or South Korean airspace at a height of 100,000 feet and fly three times the speed of sound. The document does not detail how the drone is propelled but says “engine features are primarily associated with rocket fuel.”
A map of projected routes, labeled “not necessarily authoritative,” suggests ways the drone’s “Electro-optical” cameras and sensors could gather intelligence on Taiwan’s main island and nearby regions.
The drone’s primary use won’t be against Taiwan but against the United States and its military bases in the Pacific, said Chi Li-pin, director of the aeronautical systems research division at the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan’s military-run weapons developer. “It’s a weapon for anti-access and area denial,” he said.
Chi added that the aircraft does not currently appear to be designed to launch attacks, but he noted modifications could allow it to conduct strikes in future.
The disclosure shows China is developing a capability to monitor the entire Indo-Pacific region.
Some have said that China is creating a range of high-tech systems for military use — from hypersonic weapons that can use drone reconnaissance for anti-ship purposes to anti-satellite weapons that they could use to try to blind the United States.
These activities have set another tone for the escalating tensions between China and the Indo-Pacific region vis a vis the Taiwan issue. Skepticisms and suspicions are running high. All eyes are on the next move to anticipate China’s next step and how to possibly contain the Chinese actions.
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