Taiwan plans a multinational drone alliance to tie its makers into trusted supply chains

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it will organise a multilateral grouping of like-minded countries and industry partners, to be called the Global UAV Alliance for Resilience and Democracy, or GUARD, to link Taiwanese drone makers with international markets. Chiang Chen-wei, who heads the ministry's drone diplomacy task force and its committee on international NGO affairs, announced the plan at a ministry briefing in Taipei on Tuesday 10 November.

According to Chiang, the alliance will concentrate on five areas: connecting supply chains, international certification, training of skilled personnel, international competitions, and promotion at trade shows. He said its stated purpose is to help build a drone ecosystem worldwide that is democratic, resilient and trustworthy, and that it will grow out of the bilateral cooperation arrangements already set up by the Drone International Academy, a foundation the ministry helped to establish.

The academy opened in Taipei on 30 October at a forum it co-hosted with the Taiwan Defense Industry Development Association, under the theme of Taiwan as the Asian centre of a democratic drone supply chain. Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim opened the event and a former speaker of the Czech lower house gave a keynote address. The ministry said more than 350 guests from Taiwan and abroad attended.

At the opening, Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung witnessed the academy sign memorandums of understanding with a Polish drone industry association and with the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan's military research institute. Drone industry associations and specialists from the United States, Japan, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine took part in discussions on key components, supply chain cooperation and technology, which the ministry presented as results of the first year of its drone diplomacy push.

Chiang also reported on Taiwan's delegation to the 2026 Berlin Security Conference in Germany on 3 and 4 November. Lin addressed the conference by recorded video, while Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu, National Security Council deputy secretary-general Lin Fei-fan and Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng, the defence ministry's deputy chief of the general staff for intelligence, took part in a panel interview. The ministry's earlier statement said Hsieh outlined the progress Taiwan has made in strengthening its own defences.

For the first time, the foreign ministry helped Taiwanese companies set up a drone industry exhibition area at the Berlin event, built around key components and business-to-business supply chain links. Four companies took part, including Thunder Tiger. Members of the drone diplomacy team spoke on panels about drones and counter-drone systems and about Ukraine's experience with drones, and the delegation met German drone companies and the European unmanned aviation association UAV DACH to discuss supply chain links, technology exchange and business matchmaking.

The ministry argued at the briefing that Taiwan's strengths in semiconductors, information and communications technology and precision manufacturing could help Europe build secure and trustworthy drone supply chains. It also said it had created a technology track in its international youth ambassador programme this year and sent young people with drone skills to the Berlin conference and to meetings with a German-Taiwanese youth group.

The foreign ministry said it will keep combining government, industry, academia and young people under what it calls total diplomacy, with the aim of turning Taiwan's technology industries into concrete diplomatic results and making the island the Asian hub of a democratic drone supply chain. Neither report gave a launch date for GUARD or named the countries and companies expected to join it.