Taiwan's navy has moved plans to acquire a domestically developed maritime reconnaissance drone out of the regular defense budget and into President Lai Ching-te(賴清德)'s proposed special spending package, according to sources familiar with the matter — a shift that kept the procurement off the public books until now.
The navy intends to purchase 36 units of the Ruiyuan II unmanned aerial vehicle for NT$12.6 billion over three years, with 12 aircraft delivered annually. The drone, developed by the government-affiliated Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, was conspicuously absent from the publicly released annual defense budget, raising questions in defense circles before the special budget framework provided a vehicle for the acquisition.
The Ruiyuan II is designed for long-range maritime surveillance, with a control and detection range exceeding 300 kilometers.
The drone carries a composite optical payload, sea-search radar, inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR), electronic intercept systems, and an automatic identification system (AIS) for ship tracking. During live-fire naval exercises, it successfully relayed real-time footage of target vessels to command centers via microwave, high-throughput satellite, and 4G/5G mobile communications links. It passed operational evaluations for naval requirements in March 2023.
The military had originally scheduled procurement to begin in 2025 and run through 2027, but revised the timeline to span 2026 through 2028 — a shift the Ministry of National Defense attributed to annual budget allocation adjustments. The ministry confirmed in written responses to the legislature that the program had completed formal procurement procedures and budget appropriation, but declined to release further details pending final budget approval, in line with standard practice.
The acquisition signals the drone's transition from pre-production prototype to full mass production. Earlier Ruiyuan II units featured varied equipment configurations used for testing purposes; the production version is expected to consolidate these into a single standardized airframe following evaluation by the Chungshan Institute.
The Ruiyuan II procurement falls under the "unmanned vehicles and counter systems" category within Lai's eight-year, NT$1.25 trillion special defense spending proposal — one of seven capability areas the package is designed to fund, alongside precision artillery, long-range strike missiles, air and missile defense systems, AI-assisted command infrastructure, and jointly developed equipment with the United States.
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