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U.K. government officials have raised private concerns that Chinese-manufactured drones are being used to take high resolution images of critical national infrastructure sites in the U.K., going against guidance from the country's security services. National Grid PLC, which operates the nation's electricity and gas networks, uses drones made by Shenzhen-based SZ DJI Technology to take videos, photographs and thermal images of its electricity substations, according to information posted on its website as recently as September. DJI drones have also been used to survey the construction of Electricite de France SA's Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, to inspect solar farms, and by Thames Water to monitor reservoirs and the water supply. Deployment of the drones comes despite a warning in 2023 by the U.K.'s National Protective Security Authority (NPSA), part of the domestic security service MI5, that British organizations managing sensitive sites should be wary of using drones "manufactured in countries with coercive data sharing practices," a reference to China. Moreover, in 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense included DJI on a blacklist of Chinese firms with military ties.

The Defense Ministry said Thursday that the Air Self-Defense Force scrambled fighter jets 704 times in response to possible airspace violations in fiscal 2024, up by 35 from the previous year. Of the total, scrambles against Chinese military aircraft accounted for 464, or 65.9%, down by 15. In August, Chinese military airplanes violated Japanese airspace off the Danjo Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture for the first time. The number of Chinese drones detected by the ministry more than tripled to 30, exceeding the 26 detected between fiscal 2013, when the first Chinese drone was spotted, and fiscal 2023. "China may have developed a system to (fully) operate drones, upgrading from trial flights," a ministry official said.

In its notice, the Commerce Department said that drones could be used to damage physical infrastructure in a collision, deliver an explosive payload or gather information about critical infrastructure, including building layouts. In addition, with critical infrastructure in the United States increasingly reliant on drones, any efforts to remotely incapacitate them would create a risk to national security. The department added that in the past, drone companies based in China had pushed updates to their devices to create no-fly restrictions that disabled them in conflict zones defined by the companies. The notice said that the Commerce Department was also considering whether any measures could mitigate the risks and allow the sale of Chinese drones to continue, such as certain design requirements or cybersecurity software. The proposed rule is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to examine and eliminate vulnerabilities in high-tech products and communications infrastructure that collect huge amounts of data about Americans.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., tells'America Reports' that China is the primary geopolitical threat to the U.S. and should be addressed more by presidential candidates. The tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are creeping into an increasing number of U.S. industries in China's coordinated campaign to infiltrate critical industries to the U.S. economy. The CCP views theft of U.S. intellectual property as "a strategic resource," and China remains the largest source of counterfeit and pirated goods in the world. Chinese companies are building electric vehicle (EV) battery plants near key U.S. military installations, and China still controls the global chips market despite investments in U.S. production. China is also flexing its dominance of the rare earth sector in retaliation for U.S. trade policy, and China is in talks to create a new military facility just miles from the American homeland.

From Saudi Arabia to Myanmar and Iraq to Ethiopia, more and more militaries across the world are stockpiling Chinese combat drones and deploying them on the battlefield. In Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition has dispatched the Chinese aircraft, also known as uncrewed aerial vehicles or UAVs, as part of a devastating air campaign that has killed more than 8,000 Yemeni civilians in the past eight years. In Iraq, authorities say they used Chinese drones to carry out more than 260 air raids against ISIL (ISIS) targets as of mid-2018, with a success rate of nearly 100 percent. In Myanmar, the military -- armed with Chinese drones -- has conducted hundreds of air attacks on civilians and ethnic armed groups opposed to its power grab two years ago, while in Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's fleet of Chinese, Iranian and Turkish drones was critical in helping his forces thwart a rebel march in 2021 that threatened to overthrow his government. Other buyers of China's combat drones -- aircraft that, in addition to intelligence gathering, can also fire air-to-surface missiles -- include Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Pakistan and Serbia.

Taipei, Taiwan – Taiwan's military has said it shot down an unidentified civilian drone over the outlying island of Kinmen amid a continuing increase in Chinese military activity around the island since last month's controversial visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The drone, which was shot down on Thursday, is the first to be hit following a warning from Taiwan that it would use live ammunition against drones. The threat came after a video of Taiwanese soldiers throwing rocks at a Chinese drone went viral. Drone flights have reportedly escalated near Kinmen, which is located a few kilometres off the coast of China, and around the Matsu Islands in the East China Sea. The decision to fire on Chinese drones is a departure for Taiwan's military, said Yen-Chi Hsu, an assistant researcher at Taiwan's Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies.

PENGHU, Taiwan – Taiwan fired warning shots at a Chinese drone which buzzed an offshore islet on Tuesday shortly after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said she had ordered Taiwan's military to take "strong countermeasures" against what she termed Chinese provocations. It was the first time such warning shots have been fired during a period of heightened tensions between China and Taiwan. Beijing views the island as its own territory, while Taiwan strongly disputes China's sovereignty claims. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

Taiwan has said it would shoot down drones that intrude into its Kinmen island from the mainland, amid tensions in the Taiwan Strait. The Kinmen Defense Command said in a statement that it would drive Chinese drones out of Kinmen County, and shoot them down if warnings are ignored. The announcement comes a week after a Chinese civilian drone intruded into Taiwanese territory and recorded visuals of two soldiers manning a guardhouse. These visuals were later widely circulated on Chinese social media Sina Weibo. Taiwanese military sources then claimed it fired warning flares to repel Chinese drones while refraining from more aggressive measures such as shooting aircraft down to avoid further escalating cross-strait tensions.

Former military intelligence analyst Brett Velicovich said on Thursday that the report of federal agencies buying Chinese drones "poses a national security risk." Federal law enforcement agencies in the Biden administration are reportedly purchasing surveillance drones from China that have previously been labeled a potential national security threat by the Pentagon. The U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have recently acquired surveillance drones from the Shenzhen-based company DJI, around the same time the Defense Department deemed products from the Chinese company to be a potential national security threat, according to an Axios report. "The American people especially need to look at what this administration does, and not what they say, because they are clearly full of it if they don't stop this illegal activity immediately," Velicovich told "Fox & Friends." Velicovich argued that the purchase of Chinese-made drones is not only hypocritical to the Biden administration's stance on reducing America's reliance on technology, but it was also made illegal by the Department of Justice in 2019 when specific legislation was passed banning the purchase of drones and components made in China.