150 Billion Won Poured In, But "Cannot Stop Chinese Drones"... "Shocking Gap" Raising Fears

It has been revealed that a drone defense system built by Taiwan at a cost of 150 billion won in preparation for potential attacks by China has major flaws.

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported that a report by Taiwan's auditing authorities contained findings that the stationary drone defense system, built to protect Taiwanese air force bases and key military facilities, has serious flaws.

According to the report, the defense system fails to detect or jam the frequencies of new drone models used by the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

It was also found to be unresponsive to certain frequency bands used by China's Beidou-3 satellite navigation system.

Despite the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan's largest weapons development agency, spending 157 billion won of our money to develop it, vulnerabilities have been exposed, raising concerns over whether it can defend against newer types of drones such as fiber-optic guided drones or AI-guided drones.

Additionally, the auditing authorities pointed out that due to construction delays and disruptions in procuring core components, the inspection of some systems was delayed by up to a year behind schedule.

In response, Taiwan's Ministry of Defense explained that the Chinese technologies noted as exposing weaknesses in the defense system emerged after 2021, when the defense system development plan was initiated.

The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense stated, "The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has verified jamming capabilities against new frequencies and will add jamming functions through future system upgrades," adding that it is accelerating the development of next-generation drone defense technologies capable of responding to new drones.

However, the Ministry of Defense's response has drawn criticism within Taiwan.

Lo Ching-sheng, executive director of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society, pointed out, "This project has just been completed, yet there is no explanation whatsoever on when the actual upgrades will take place," asking, "What are we supposed to do if the Chinese People's Liberation Army attacks Taiwan before then?"

Previously, a separate stationary drone defense system procurement project pursued by the Taiwanese Army, worth 439 billion won of our money, collapsed last month after failing three rounds of performance tests.

(Reported by Kim Jin-woo | Video by Na Hong-hee | Graphics by Lee Jung-joo | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.