{"id":152156,"date":"2013-03-01T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T18:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=152156"},"modified":"2013-03-01T12:12:26","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T20:12:26","slug":"here-come-chinas-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/03\/here-come-chinas-drones\/","title":{"rendered":"Here Come China’s Drones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although Mekong River murderer<\/a> and drug lord Naw Kham died by lethal injection yesterday<\/a>, rather than by the drone strike once proposed<\/a>, the military and civilian roles of China’s unmanned aerial vehicles are set to expand considerably. At The Diplomat, Trefor Moss examines the state of China’s drone capabilities<\/strong><\/a>, and the prospect of relatively cheap Chinese UAVs proliferating in the developing world.<\/p>\n

\n

Unmanned systems have become the legal and ethical problem child of the global defense industry and the governments they supply, rewriting the rules of military engagement in ways that many find disturbing. And this sense of unease about where we\u2019re headed is hardly unfamiliar. Much like the emergence of drone technology, the rise of China and its reshaping of the geopolitical landscape has stirred up a sometimes understandable, sometimes irrational, fear of the unknown.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to say, then, that Chinese drones conjure up a particularly intense sense of alarm that the media has begun to embrace as a license to panic. China is indeed developing a range of unmanned aerial vehicles\/systems (UAVs\/UASs) at a time when relations with Japan are tense, and when those with the U.S. are delicate. But that hardly justifies claims that \u201cdrones have taken center stage in an escalating arms race between China and Japan,\u201d or that the \u201cChina drone threat highlights [a] new global arms race,\u201d as some observers would have it. This hyperbole was perhaps fed by a 2012 U.S. Department of Defense report which described China\u2019s development of UAVs as “alarming.”<\/p>\n

That\u2019s quite unreasonable. All of the world\u2019s advanced militaries are adopting drones, not just the PLA. That isn\u2019t an arms race, or a reason to fear China, it\u2019s just the direction in which defense technology is naturally progressing. Secondly, while China may be demonstrating impressive advances, Israel and the U.S. retain a substantial lead in the UAV field, with China\u2014alongside Europe, India and Russia\u2014 still in the second tier. And thirdly, China is modernizing in all areas of military technology \u2013 unmanned systems being no exception.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, China has started to show its hand in terms of the roles that it expects its growing fleet of UAVs to fulfill. [\u2026]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although Mekong River murderer and drug lord Naw Kham died by lethal injection yesterday, rather than by the drone strike once proposed, the military and civilian roles of China’s unmanned aerial vehicles are set to expand considerably. At The Diplomat, Trefor Moss examines the state of China’s drone capabilities, and the prospect of relatively cheap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":962,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,14744,14745,14746,100,6],"tags":[15966,728,2452],"class_list":["post-152156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","category-sci-tech","tag-drones","tag-military","tag-military-reform","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nHere Come China's Drones<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/03\/here-come-chinas-drones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Here Come China's Drones\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Although Mekong River murderer and drug lord Naw Kham died by lethal injection yesterday, rather than by the drone strike once proposed, the military and civilian roles of China’s unmanned aerial vehicles are set to expand considerably. 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