Taiwan defense leaders push autonomous vessels to counter Chinese maritime pressure

During the Taiwan External Trade Development Council’s 2026 Aerospace and Defense Strategic Forum, senior defense executives highlighted the strategic advantage of autonomous maritime platforms for Taiwan. Mira Resnick, a senior director at Saronic Technologies, described how Taiwan’s navy and coast guard waste their most limited resource—sailors—by constantly shadowing Chinese militia vessels, a practice that erodes hulls and morale without firing a shot.

She proposed deploying modular, multi-mission autonomous surface vessels alongside the roughly 1,300 one-way USVs Taiwan plans to buy, enabling persistent surveillance and targeting support. Alex Chang, head of Anduril Taiwan, argued that future battlefields will demand split-second decisions that human operators cannot process across all sensor feeds, making autonomy essential for resilience against missile strikes and electronic warfare.

Chang called for a unified data layer that can function even when communications are degraded, giving junior leaders more freedom and presenting adversaries with a complex set of targets. The discussion reflects Taiwan’s broader effort to modernize its maritime defenses amid escalating Chinese gray-zone tactics.