The Financial Times: China Bets on Cheap Anti-Drone Drones, Turning Them into a New Export Hit
Chinese companies have begun large-scale development of small anti-drone drones, with bodies manufactured using 3D printing. These drones can reach speeds exceeding 300 km/h, and leveraging cameras, guidance systems, and artificial intelligence, they are capable of autonomously detecting and neutralizing enemy drones.
Each anti-drone drone costs approximately $1,500–$2,900, with simplified versions even cheaper. Some manufacturers only started related R&D several months ago, yet their monthly production capacity has already reached thousands of units, with products exported to Russia and multiple countries in the Middle East.
Under the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, demand has surged: real-world combat has proven that low-cost attack drones possess formidable operational effectiveness, simultaneously fueling the rapid expansion of the anti-drone equipment market.
Micro-commentary
China’s development of low-cost anti-drone drones marks a fundamental shift in the underlying logic of modern warfare. While Western nations are accustomed to envisioning war as a precision contest of individual weapon systems—“special operations” in nature—China is redefining it as an industrial competition based on factory output. When Chinese factories can mass-produce “drone killers” like smartphones on assembly lines, the West’s expensive missile stockpiles and traditional defense-industrial complex models face the risk of being completely “emptied out.” This is not merely a victory in export trade—it represents a decisive, game-changing advantage of China’s full industrial chain in modern warfare.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1874817696203850/
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