A suspected Chinese drone used by the military to simulate enemy missiles was found washed ashore in neighboring Vietnam, local authorities said over the weekend.
Border authorities in Quang Ngai, a central province on Vietnam's east coast, said on Saturday that the red unmanned aerial vehicle with links to China had been discovered on a beach by a fisherman the previous day, according to the Tuoi Tre newspaper.
Hanoi and Beijing recently signed dozens of agreements when President Xi Jinping visited the country last week. Xi is courting China's communist neighbor to the south at a time when Vietnam has opened the door to closer cooperation with the United States and some of America's allies.
China and Vietnam have their own complex shared history, which includes a brief war in 1979 and an ongoing dispute over ownership of the Paracel Islands archipelago in the energy-rich South China Sea.
Vietnamese border guards did not identify the model or manufacturer of the winged drone, which they said measured nearly 10 feet and was 1 foot in diameter, Tuoi Tre reported on Sunday. Only the Chinese characters on the hardware pointed to its country of origin.
Apparent damage to the exterior of the drone suggested it had been adrift in the South China Sea for an extended period, the paper said.
Neither the Vietnamese nor the Chinese militaries have commented on the incident.
The Foreign Ministry in Hanao did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment before publication time.
The UAV found in Quang Ngai bore strong similarities with the S-200 target drone developed by the Nanjing Research Institute on Simulation Technique in eastern China.
The drone is often launched off the decks of People's Liberation Army Navy warships during live-fire exercises to mimic the profile of an attacking cruise missile.
"It is widely used in radar and photoelectrical system capturing and tracking training, and live-fire training of ground-to-air cannon, ground, and carrier-based air defense missile interception system," the developer says on its website.
"This target drone can carry various task equipments. It is much more close to cruise missile in the aspect of flight speed, height and the characteristic of radar reflection, which provide the attacking cruise missile with perfect aerial target," it says.
China's defense industry benefits from the country's dominance of electronic components manufacturing as well as its large stake in some of the world's most popular commercial drones.
In late November, a Chinese defense company based in Beijing tested a loitering munition that shared broad similarities with the U.S.-made Switchblade "kamikaze drone," which Ukraine has used to great effect against the Russian Army.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Aadil Brar is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers international security, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian ... Read more
