In an exclusive report, Taiwan’s military has ascertained an unusual intervention of Chinese drones in their Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) this Thursday. This is the first time that such an event has occurred, and it has caused eyebrow-raising concerns among Taiwan’s military officials. The detected Chinese drone was a “UAV WZ-7″, which is also known as the “Soaring Dragon”. According to the details reported by Taiwan News on the incident, around “five Chinese warships and 26 Chinese military aircraft, including two types of UAV WZ-7s,” were found on Thursday. Hence, as a retaliatory attempt, Taiwan’s military activated their combat air patrol planes and started giving radio alerts in order to forewarn the military force.
In addition to this, Taiwan’s military used their land-based anti-aircraft missiles in order to knock down and track the Chinese aircrafts. As per the regulatory issued by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND), “26 Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft and five ships have been detected around Taiwan. Of these, two Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and two Xi’an JH-7 fighter bombers crossed the median line.” It further stated, “One Guizhou BZK-007 drone flew just off the southwestern edge of the median line, and four Shenyang J-16 fighters, one Shaanxi Y-9 electronic warfare plane, and one Guizhou WZ-7 Soaring Dragon entered the southwest corner of Taiwan’s ADIZ.”
On the other hand, some videos started to circulate on the Chinese social media website “Weibo” which depicted some Chinese civilian drones “mocking” Taiwan’s military and the news has been confirmed by CNN. The citizens have been rocked by shock and disbelief but Taiwan’s military later rubbished the fears and said that these are some domestic drones from China. China tends to keep its cards very close to the chest and this is the reason that it’s still ambiguous whether China has plans to transform from manned to unmanned drones for such types of “intrusions” or whether it would like to go with both.
To that end, the Chinese WZ-7 drones, as claimed by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, are one of the “biggest reconnaissance drones in the world” and come under the category of High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) drones. In addition to that, these unmanned drones are 5.41 meters tall, 14.33 meters long, and are having a wingspan of 24.86 meters. Along with this, they can remain in flight for about ten hours and can carry a weight of around 650 kgs. Hence, these are highly capable and contemporary drones having a maximum range of 7000 km. Let’s see what possible implications will Taiwan’s government take for its security.