Five years ago, China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping called on the People’s Liberation Army to “accelerate its drone warfare research and training.” After considerable effort to develop uncrewed systems (UxS) of all types to modernize its military force and fight the wars of the future, Beijing is closer to deploying them. Most recently, China’s September 3 parade commemorating its victory in World War II showcased some of the newest uncrewed platforms of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) while demonstrating China’s push for military modernization and “intelligentization” of its force.
A recent analysis I conducted with my colleague Eleanor Harvey, PRC Concepts for UAV Swarms in Future Warfare, highlights China’s intent to accelerate and advance the PLA’s development, testing, and use of UxS, especially for drone swarm technology. This effort is driven in part by the perceived threat from advances in US drone capabilities. We found that the PLA is now exploring the use of UxS and testing drone swarm technology for use in a possible invasion of Taiwan. In addition, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is examining how other militaries use drones and drone swarms so that the PLA can develop its own counter–swarm methods and technologies.
China is certainly not alone in this pursuit. Uncrewed and increasingly autonomous weapons systems are changing the way war is fought around the globe. Like all military powers, China is paying close attention to current conflicts—particularly the war in Ukraine.
Nor is China a newcomer to drones and uncrewed technology. China has been developing and testing uncrewed platforms since the 1960s, such as simple remotely controlled aircraft for target practice and high-altitude photo-reconnaissance uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). For decades, China’s research and development of UxS lagged behind the world’s leading military powers technologically, particularly as the US advanced in autonomous and semi-autonomous drone swarm research. However, this technology gap may now be closing.
China’s top-down push for military drone development
Statements from PRC leadership and PRC government reports from the last five years indicate the country’s intent to be a global leader in the military UAV domain. This is likely a top-down directive given by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by CCP general secretary and chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi Jinping. Not long after his call for the PLA to “accelerate its drone warfare research and training,” the PRC National People's Congress released its 14th Five-Year Plan, covering the years 2021 to 2025. It states that “future wars will be uncrewed and intelligent” and that the PRC must “steadily advance national defense and military construction” to meet this need.
In response to this call, industry, state-owned enterprises, military research institutes, and private-sector civilian research organizations have been marching forward steadily, advancing the PRC’s drone research and development. One 2023 industry report discussing PRC drone developer Aerospace Rainbow UAV Co., Ltd., estimated a 67 percent increase in PRC military spending on UAVs following the release of the 14th Five-Year Plan and stated that “increased domestic demand for military drones is driven by policy.”
Recent operational advances in China’s drones
The recent wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, have further catalyzed China’s push to develop and test new types of drones and drone swarm technologies. PRC researchers, experts, and PLA planners have been rigorously examining how the PLA can adapt its force to the latest technologies, including using drones across the battlespace domains of sea, land, and air. PLA and PRC military research institutes are also tracking closely the progress of the US and other countries as China researches countering UAV swarm warfare, particularly research on directed energy and high-power microwave weapons. They are working to develop countermeasures for detection, soft kill, and hard destruction of enemy UxS. One major takeaway—according to PRC authors—is that small, expendable drones and drone swarms offer key offensive and defensive asymmetric advantages that can complement larger, more expensive uncrewed combat vehicles and crewed systems.
PRC writings from the last five years assess that after a late start in drone swarm development, China is catching up to—or even surpassing—the US in drone swarm technology. In 2020, state-owned defense contractor China Electronic Technology Group Corporation conducted its “first practical test for fixed-wing drone swarms used for ground surveillance and precision strike.” The test used both a ground-based launch vehicle that could deploy 48 fixed-wing drones at a time to form a swarm as well as air-launched drones deployed from a helicopter. The next year, in May 2021, the company announced its second test of a UAV launcher, this time capable of launching a swarm of up to 200 fixed-wing drones. One PLA Air Force senior colonel described the test as a very important step toward the PLA having “true swarm” capabilities.
While the degree of autonomy the PLA’s swarms have achieved is not clear, the PLA is certainly taking UxS seriously enough to incorporate their use into exercises for their most vexing problem set: a landing campaign on Taiwan. The PLA is exercising with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) drone swarms for amphibious landing exercises, testing drone formations for “island-blocking scenarios” against targets suspiciously shaped like Taiwan, and churning out a conveyer belt of new uncrewed platforms at an alarmingly fast pace in the last few years.
In the summer of 2025 alone, the PLA tested—and apparently fielded—some of the more advanced UxS anywhere, including drone swarm technology for UAV and uncrewed surface vessels (USV). In June, the PRC reportedly flight tested its latest high-altitude, long-endurance “drone mothership,” the 25-meter wingspan Jiu Tian SS-UAV, capable of releasing anywhere from 100 to 150 smaller loitering munition drones from dual internal bays on its fuselage. (Pictured above in a representation from Chinese television CCTV.) In August, the PLA tested “drone swarms and robot wolves” in an urban warfare confrontation exercise simulation using "human-machine collaborative combat teams." And then the September 3 World War II commemoration parade displayed numerous uncrewed platforms, some of which were unveiled for the first time. One of these new aircraft, a currently unnamed fighter-sized UAV, could possibly showcase China’s latest development of collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), or “loyal wingman.” If actually in operation, this could be the first CCA aircraft to reach initial operational capability.
Whether or not these new UxS are actually ready for initial deployment and use in missions is still very much up for debate. The PLA’s ability to adopt the newest technologies into their force that is untested in modern warfare—and whether they can afford them at scale—is also very much speculative. What is certain, however, is that observers in China and the PLA are fastidiously watching the shifting winds in military force design and taking steps now to prepare China to fight the wars of the future. If they are successful, and if the US joint force were to act to protect Taiwan in an attempted military takeover by the PRC, US and allied forces could face several advanced PLA UxS, including ISR, strike, and autonomous drone swarms.
