China aims to derail Taiwan’s drone efforts, source says

By Chou Ching-wen, Fang Wei-li and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer Add TT as Preferred Source China is orchestrating a campaign to derail Taiwan’s efforts to develop military drones through politicians in opposition parties, a source with knowledge of cross-strait affairs said yesterday, claims that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) called “false and malicious.” Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source told the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ Chinese-language sister paper) that Chinese officials and their intermediaries in May and last month gave detailed instructions to opposition politicians to derail Taiwan’s efforts to develop uncrewed systems. The KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) slashed NT$470 billion (US$14.57 billion) from the government’s NT$1.25 tri