Chinese Navy Employs UAV Assets

China's navy has begun using unmanned aerial vehicles as part of its blue-water operations. At least one type has been photographed by foreign reconnaissance aircraft, and other variants have been reported. Not only has China been displaying an assortment of models at air shows, it also is incorporating advanced U.S. unmanned vehicle technology into current and future systems.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) since it built copies of U.S. Air Force Firebee drones that were shot down during the 1960s. These were the prototype WuZhen-5 (WZ-5), also referred to as Chang Hong (CH-1) UAVs, in 1972. Chinese UAVs initially were designed by the China Airborne Missile Academy with the PLA as the prime customer for decades. The PLA reportedly used UAVs during the 1979 invasion of Vietnam, and it gained valuable reconnaissance information that aided combat operations


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