When Taiwan’s military unveiled robot dogs designed to patrol remote outposts in the South China Sea in early June, it was more than a showcase of something new. It’s a sign that militaries across the region are moving toward unmanned technologies, observers told Radio Free Asia.
The four-legged surveillance machines will be able to monitor remote locations in disputed waters and maintain a presence around isolated islands, reducing the manpower needed to monitor Chinese activities in or near areas claimed by Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.
Lessons learned from recent conflicts have shown that unmanned systems can effectively contribute to defense, Enrico Cau, an independent security researcher based in Taipei, told RFA.
“If we use Ukraine as a comparative context to assess the suitability of unmanned platforms in a hypothetical cross-strait scenario, it seems natural to think that the use of similar platforms in such a scenario will play a key role,” Cau said.
“This is not only because unmanned platforms allow militaries to save human lives, but also because their replicability offers the possibility of manufacturing and deploying them in shorter time frames, in higher volumes and at lower costs compared to other platforms,” he said.
Robodog Showcase
On June 2, the three robot dog prototypes navigated a testing ground in a demonstration organized by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, owned by the Taiwan military.
Built for reconnaissance, surveillance and combat roles, they were equipped with cameras, sensors and one even carried a mounted weapon.
The robots are intended for potential deployment on Taiwan-controlled islands in the South China Sea, where personnel must maintain constant surveillance over large swaths of sea while operating far from the main island of Taiwan.
“The marines believe that on the beaches and coastline, including for coast guards in Nansha and Dongsha for patrols and inspections, there is an urgent need,” Jen Kuo-kuang, deputy director of the institute’s missile and rocket systems research division, said at the event, referring to the hotly contested island chains of Pratas and Spratly.
But the trend extends far beyond robot dogs.
Taiwan has accelerated the development of military drones, drone boats and other autonomous systems in recent years, while China has invested heavily in unmanned surface ships, underwater drones and surveillance networks. Across the region, unmanned systems are increasingly seen as a way to monitor isolated maritime areas at lower cost and with fewer personnel.
A question of scale
These new technologies are just the beginning of drone warfare concepts in the Indo-Pacific, and it will be more important who can produce them faster, Jason Wang, a national security researcher and director of operations at ingeniSPACE, a Silicon Valley geo-intelligence analysis firm, told RFA.
“China’s capacity for expansion is very different from Taiwan’s,” Wang said. “They already produce 500 to 600,000 per month. Ukraine produces 200,000 per month. Taiwan is only discussing 200,000 per year.”
He added that for Taiwan it is even more difficult due to geography.
“Everything Taiwan needs to sustain itself should already be on the island. »
The island’s demographic realities also limit Taiwan’s ability to produce large numbers of drones, Harun Talha Ayanoglu, a visiting scholar at Taipei’s Institute of National Defense and Security Research, or INDSR, found in a recent study.
“Taiwan’s ability to maintain credible deterrence will depend not only on the size of its reserve force, but on how effectively it integrates manpower with scalable and operational unmanned systems under conditions of demographic constraint,” Ayanoglu wrote.
Taiwan entered the category of very old society in 2026, with more than a fifth of its population aged 65 or older. The declining number of military-age citizens raises questions about the long-term sustainability of labor-intensive defense models and adds urgency to efforts to integrate new technologies into the armed forces.
In response to the potential manpower shortage, Taiwan reintroduced one-year military conscription and began integrating drone training into conscription and reserve programs.
According to Ayanoglu, unmanned systems can help smaller, less continuously trained units operate more effectively by expanding surveillance, targeting and situational awareness capabilities.
But Cau says technology alone is not a deciding factor.
“If we reframe this question to what might matter in a potential cross-strait scenario and focus on the situation from Taipei’s perspective, I think the real game changer would be Taipei’s ability to continue manufacturing unmanned platforms also in the event of a conflict or blockade,” Cau said. “In short, we can talk about “economic sustainability, availability, replicability and large-scale deployability” as key factors in conflict. »
This challenge is particularly important because China has major advantages in terms of production scale and supply chain resilience.
“In this regard, China has an advantage because it manages the entire supply chain with very little risk of disruptions,” Cau said. Taiwan, by contrast, remains vulnerable to what he described as the “tyranny of insularity combined with proximity to the mainland.”
The labor problem
The appeal of unmanned systems is particularly evident in maritime environments, where governments must monitor large areas while maintaining a constant presence around isolated islands and outposts.
China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam all maintain forces around contested maritime formations in the South China Sea, often requiring costly and labor-intensive patrol operations.
“Active and passive unmanned platforms offer extended surveillance and range capabilities; longer patrol and surveillance times in smaller, more sophisticated packages, without all the logistics and costs associated with manned platforms,” Cau explained.
While China and Taiwan are increasingly investing in autonomous technologies, other regional contenders are developing such capabilities at different rates.
Cau said the Philippines cannot compete with China in any aspect of its military, especially where technology is involved, while Vietnam is only beginning to develop a local military drone industry with international partners.
Over time, technologies will become more and more sophisticated.
“Future trends only promise more of this,” Cau said, adding that further integration of unmanned systems could evolve beyond surveillance operations, to eventually include offensive capabilities.
Wang said the military would likely combine the different unmanned systems and technologies.
“We will see more hybrid platforms, such as robot dogs carrying aerial drones to expand perimeter surveillance,” he said.
Additionally, a drone with mapping technology could tell soldiers what the inside of a building looks like before they enter and engage the enemy, he added.
“What scares me is an Operation Spiderweb type attack,” he said, referring to the covert Ukrainian drone attack on Russian air bases in June last year.
“Taiwan’s ports are close to many airports and air bases,” he said. “Critical infrastructure will have to… survive an onslaught not of hundreds but of thousands at a time. Quantity has a quality of its own.”
Edited by Eugene Whong.