China has greatly expanded its UAV efforts over the past decade and is now offering a broad range of UAVs in the export market

[This article is drawn from Teal Group's World Military Unmanned Aerial Systems, 2023/2024 Market Profile & Forecast.]

China has had an active UAV program since the mid-1970s. However, data on the actual extent of UAV production is nearly non-existent, and there is no information on the procurement objectives of the People’s Liberation Army or Air Force. A report from Taiwan estimated that about 280 UAVs were in service in mid-2011. Given the extremely active development programs in recent years, the current inventory is presumably much higher.

Chinese tactical UAVs have been used in traditional roles such as artillery spotting, and some are deployed in army divisions in "Instrument Reconnaissance Companies" of the usual divisional reconnaissance battalions. Another application has been for route security for the mobile IRBM launchers of the PLA Second Artillery strategic missile force. There has been a wide range of experimentation with UAVs in recent years, including naval applications.

Chinese aerospace firms have been displaying an increasing number of UAVs at international trade shows in recent years as well as at the bi-annual Air Show China in Zhuhai. It is becoming increasingly difficult to separate conceptual designs from actual production efforts, as many Chinese firms display models and illustrations for UAVs that have no firm government or corporate backing. Around 2014, ASN, part of the AVIC consortium, claims to have manufactured 90% of the existing Chinese inventory, which if true, suggests that most of the existing force consisted at the time of small, tactical UAVs. Most published sources suggest that most of the UAV force up to this point was under Army control, which may account for the predominance of TUAVs.

An additional source of confusion over Chinese UAVs is the use of different names for the same system by the multiple marketing agencies. Export agencies such as CPMEIC, Poly Technologies, ALIT, and Xinshidai have all marketed the same CASC UAVs, but often under different names. So, for example, the CH-3 UAV developed by CASC, have been marketed variously as the PW-3 and the CH-3, as well as by its name Rainbow, derived from its Chinese name Cai Hong (Rainbow). Norinco has marketed Chengdu UAVs under its own names, usually starting with "Sharp" such as the Sharp Eagle, confusingly renamed (again) as the Sky Saker.

Teal Group Analysis

China has greatly expanded its UAV efforts over the past decade and is now offering a broad range of UAVs in the export market from mini-UAVs through large armed drones. As mentioned above, one of China's most prominent UAV designers stated that sales in 2015 had reached the "hundreds of millions," largely through the sale of armed UAVs such as the CH-3 and CH-4. More recently, China has had significant success in the export of Predator/Reaper type drones such as the Wing Loong-1 and -2. If this trend continues, China could emerge as a rival to other major exporters such as Israel. China has been able to encroach in areas of traditional US aerospace sales such as the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia due to constraints on US sales because of MTCR and other arms-control restrictions. Chinese firms seem to sense that this niche creates a significant opening for worldwide aerospace sales, and they have started to try to exploit this situation by offering an extremely wide range of armed UAS. Recent sales of the newer UAV types such as the CH-3, CH-4 and Wing Loong series have totaled about 170 from 2016 to 2019.

These exports have had their fair share of problems with the Iraqis finding that their Chinese drones had a low serviceability rate, and Jordan selling off their Chinese drones to Libya for undisclosed reasons. This is not altogether surprising due to the novelty of the technology which may take some time to mature. Over the past few years, Turkey appears to be taking over the niche discovered by China by offering its combat-proven Bayraktar TB2 drone.

Chinese UAV developments are confusing outside China, since the main source of information comes from the several competing export agencies such as CPMEIC, Norinco, Poly Technologies and others that advertise at international aviation shows. These agencies often use different names for the same UAV system creating the impression of a very large number of different types.

The Chinese UAVs cleared for export have become better known in recent years. However, the domestic market for military UAVs in China remains largely hidden.

Any assessment of Chinese acquisition of military UAVs is bound to be extremely speculative, given the lack of quantitative data on the Chinese programs. China has shown an interest in keeping abreast with international developments in military technology, and the US use of UAVs in Afghanistan since 2001-02, and in Iraq since 2003, has no doubt been noticed. China is likely to deploy some number of tactical UAVs over the next decade to modernize and expand the PLA's force. Of more interest will be the effort by the PLAAF to become more deeply involved in endurance UAVs. There has been an assortment of internet photos, suggesting that the testing of MALE and HALE UAVs is well underway, so deployment of these types in the mid-term seems likely. There have been reports of VTUAVs deployed on frigates in the South China Sea, and these may be testbeds for future acquisition. So far, the one area not well exploited by Chinese product offerings has been the field of mini-UAVs, which is very surprising given the number of Chinese commercial mini-UAV offerings.