China’s military drones head south, blocking at the doorstep of Vietnam and the Philippines, ready to launch a comprehensive strike at any moment.
Large-scale high-altitude long-endurance drones of the Chinese military moved southward, directly blocking the doorstep of Vietnam and the Philippines, ready to launch a comprehensive strike in the South China Sea at any time.
Foreign media disclosed the latest developments of the People’s Liberation Army in the South China Sea direction, with the appearance of the WZ-7 drones indicating that China is likely changing its approach to dealing with the South China Sea issue, which also means that the entire situation of the South China Sea struggle is about to enter a new stage.
Recently, the well-known Russian military media website “Fisherman” rare disclosed some information about the situation in the South China Sea. They claimed that with China’s continuous strengthening of resources in the South China Sea issue, the activity of the People’s Liberation Army in the South China Sea direction is also increasing. Not only are there many ships sailing in various parts of the South China Sea, but there also appears to be the presence of WZ-7 drones in the airspace near the Philippines and Vietnam.
This news has attracted widespread attention because although the outside world discovered signs of the Southern Theater Command Naval Aviation Brigade equipping WZ-7 drones as early as March last year from the promotional videos of the Southern Theater Command, it is generally believed that the deployment of this type of drone will effectively enhance the People’s Liberation Army’s long-range reconnaissance capabilities in the South China Sea.
However, due to the lack of sufficient information, the understanding of the WZ-7 in the South China Sea issue has stopped there, and it is unclear how the People’s Liberation Army uses the WZ-7 in the South China Sea issue, or even whether the People’s Liberation Army has deployed the WZ-7 in the South China Sea. The only thing that can be confirmed is that someone did capture WZ-7 flying over Guangzhou last year, heading directly towards the South China Sea.
The news disclosed by “Fisherman” this time will attract attention largely because it confirms that the WZ-7 has indeed been deployed in the South China Sea. As for how the People’s Liberation Army uses the WZ-7? This question is secondary.
However, secondary does not mean unimportant, especially when “Fisherman” indicates that the People’s Liberation Army’s WZ-7 is conducting missions in the waters near Vietnam and the Philippines, the outside world also begins to realize that China is likely changing its attitude towards the South China Sea issue, and it is moving towards a more hardline direction.
Why say so? We all know that as a type of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft that often patrols the airspace over the East China Sea and the Sino-Indian border, the biggest advantage of the WZ-7 is its cruising altitude and speed far higher than traditional piston-powered reconnaissance drones.
With a ceiling exceeding 18,000 meters, it is almost impossible for traditional manned military aircraft to track or accompany it during peacetime, greatly enhancing its safety during missions, to the extent that even Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force F-15J fighter jets can only look up at the high-flying WZ-7 during interception missions.
With a cruising speed of over 700 kilometers per hour, the WZ-7 is also capable of rapidly transitioning between multiple mission areas. After meticulous route planning, the reconnaissance area of a single WZ-7 can even reach several times that of a piston-powered drone.
Not to mention, the WZ-7 also has various reconnaissance capabilities including electronic reconnaissance, synthetic aperture radar, optical imaging, etc., capable of undertaking various reconnaissance tasks in different environments, and the low-detectable coating covering the surface of the aircraft further enhances its stealth performance.
A series of performance advantages enable the WZ-7 to often achieve one-way transparent intelligence collection when conducting reconnaissance against countries with low technological levels such as Vietnam and the Philippines. The outside world’s belief that China will be tougher on the South China Sea issue is also based on these reasons.
After all, with the performance of the WZ-7, the People’s Liberation Army is fully capable of delivering a comprehensive blow in the intelligence field to the surrounding countries of the South China Sea, truly achieving the situation where Filipino and Vietnamese ships set sail while the People’s Liberation Army receives intelligence and formulates plans. It is even possible that before the opposite ships leave their territorial waters, China has already arranged which warship or coast guard ship will go to execute surveillance tasks.
This also explains why during the recent tensions at Ren’ai Reef, the Coast Guard was able to efficiently counter the actions of the Filipino side despite not having a superior number of frontline ships. Because we may have long obtained the situation of the Filipino fleet through the WZ-7, our hand has been seen clearly, and the direction of the situation can be guessed more or less.
This greatly improves China’s efficiency in dealing with the South China Sea issue, and the Philippines will likely calm down afterwards, choosing to end this round of Ren’ai Reef tensions, most likely because the United States has realized this.
Because the Philippines may not be able to discover the existence of the WZ-7 themselves, but the US military stationed in the Philippines can. This is enough to make the United States realize that the Philippines’ investment in Ren’ai Reef is futile, and for better use of the Philippines, temporarily disengaging from the Ren’ai Reef issue is a wise decision.
As for Vietnam, in the current strategic context where cooperation between China and Vietnam is greater than contradictions, the activity of the WZ-7 in the airspace around Vietnam is more like a deterrent, restraining Vietnam’s willingness to be a fence-sitter.
After all, just in late January of this year, the Philippine President just visited Vietnam. The two countries signed several cooperation agreements involving the South China Sea, which will inevitably add more variables to the increasingly stable situation in the South China Sea.
This is obviously not what we want to see, and in order to prevent Vietnam from repeatedly jumping around on the South China Sea issue, appropriately demonstrating the military strength of the People’s Liberation Army can make the Vietnamese side fully calm down.
In addition, the existence of the WZ-7 can also effectively restrain the activities of the US military in Southeast Asia. Because the reconnaissance range of the WZ-7 is very wide, when combined with onboard electronic reconnaissance equipment, as long as the US naval ships do not engage in radio control, being discovered by the WZ-7 is only a matter of time.
By then, the People’s Liberation Army can dispatch warships to “welcome” US naval ships at the first time, and with the People’s Liberation Army closely monitoring them, even if the Western Pacific US military wants to do something bad when entering the South China Sea, they won’t have the chance. (Jiang Fuwei)
