◎ Chen Yuxiang
When Vice President Hsiao Meiqin attended the "2026 Taipei Security Dialogue" on September 9, she stated that the government has set a clear direction for drone supply chain security. Drones produced and purchased by the government, including civilian procurement, must fully adopt a "non-red supply chain" and gradually move toward production in Taiwan. This direction deserves support. Drones are no longer just flying hardware, but information systems that integrate communication, sensing, positioning, imaging and software. If the government uses drones for national defense, police, firefighting or critical infrastructure, but cannot confirm where the flight controls, communication modules, chips and software inside come from, then even the most expensive equipment may leave security gaps. The problem is that "non-red" cannot end up with just one certificate of origin. True supply chain security requires knowing what a drone is actually made of.
In her speech at the "2026 Taipei Security Dialogue" on September 9, Vice President Hsiao Meiqin stated that drones produced and purchased by the government, including civilian procurement, must fully adopt a "non-red supply chain." (File photo) This is also the most common problem that the government will encounter when promoting non-red supply chains. The supply chain of modern electronic products is highly complex. A drone marked as made in Taiwan does not mean that every key component inside it comes from Taiwan. Motors, flight control boards, communication chips, imaging modules, battery management systems and even firmware may all pass through suppliers and sub-suppliers in different countries. The final assembly place can only tell us where the product is completed, but it does not necessarily answer who made the key parts? Who maintains the software? Where can I download updates? Where might the data be transferred? If there are no answers to these questions, the "non-red supply chain" may only cover the outer shell of the product without actually entering the inside of the product.
Therefore, the next step the government should establish is the "supply chain history" of key unmanned systems. For all unmanned vehicles purchased by the government, involved in national defense or entering important infrastructure, manufacturers should provide source information for key components with security risks and maintain a certain level of supply chain records. This does not mean that the government must trace the birthplace of every screw, but rather adopt a risk classification. Safety requirements for components involving functions such as communication, positioning, flight control, data storage, image processing, and remote updates should naturally be higher than those for general structural components. What the government really wants to know is which components may affect equipment functionality or information security once they are controlled, backdoored or interrupted.
The MQ-9B Sea Guardian UAV purchased by my country from the United States has taken off. The next step for the government should be to establish a "supply chain history" of key unmanned systems. (File photo) This system cannot just rely on manufacturers to check "no Chinese parts". Public procurement involves government funds and national security. Supplier declarations can be used as the first level of requirements, but random inspection, verification and auditing mechanisms should still be established for high-risk equipment. The contract should also clearly stipulate that if the source of key components changes, the manufacturer has the obligation to proactively notify; if the source is deliberately concealed or false information is provided, there should be corresponding contract responsibilities and procurement qualification effects. Only in this way can "not be red" be transformed from a policy slogan into a legal obligation that manufacturers can abide by and the government can verify. On the other hand, domestic industry players must also be given reasonable time to transform. Otherwise, if a complete exclusion is announced today and insufficient replacement parts cannot be found tomorrow, the policy will remain on paper in the end.
Xiao Meiqin also put forward another important concept this time: the government must let military users, scientists and enterprises work together to solve problems and establish a pragmatic path from successful testing to actual procurement. This is exactly the attitude Taiwan should adopt when developing non-red supply chains. The government should let the industry know which key components are most in need of domestic substitution, how big the government's demand will be in the future, and form a market through testing, certification and stable procurement. If supply chain security is only prohibited, it will easily increase costs; if alternative suppliers and technical capabilities are created at the same time, national security requirements may be transformed into new opportunities for Taiwan's industry.
Domestic drones must have "no Chinese parts." The picture shows the Tengyun drone developed by the Sun Yat-sen Institute of Science and Technology. (File photo) The government has listed a comprehensive non-red supply chain for drones as a policy direction, which is the right step; the next step is to turn "non-red" into a verifiable standard. The most dangerous part of national security is often not that we know who we rely on, but that we think we have got rid of dependence, but in fact key parts are still hidden deep in the invisible supply chain.
(The author is in the information industry)
