Cathy Fang, Policy Analyst at the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), participated in the 2026 Taiwan International Ocean Forum hosted by the Ocean Affairs Council on July 9. Speaking in Session 4, “Emerging Technologies for Ocean Governance,” Fang joined domestic and international experts in marine technology, maritime security, and industry to discuss global developments in uncrewed systems, maritime industry applications, counter-UAS and counter-USV defense systems, and the strategic value of expendable and attritable uncrewed platforms.
The session was moderated by Ping-Hei Chen, Lifetime Distinguished Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University. Fellow panelists included Andy Cowan, Vice President of Business Development at FiberSense; Shaul Chorev, Director of the Institute for Maritime Policy and Strategy (MPS) in Israel; Peter Houlihan, CEO of Biosphere Dynamics; and Benjamin Blandin, Research Fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR).
Fang delivered remarks titled “Uncrewed Maritime Systems and Taiwan’s Asymmetric Maritime Defense.” She noted that Taiwan’s maritime security challenge has shifted from episodic incursions to normalized coercion in the waters surrounding Taiwan. China employs naval vessels, the China Coast Guard, administrative law enforcement agencies such as the Maritime Safety Administration under the Ministry of Transport, research vessels, and maritime militia actors around Taiwan’s offshore islands, ports, sea lines of communication, and submarine cables. These activities seek to normalize China’s maritime presence, challenge Taiwan’s effective jurisdiction, test Taiwan’s response thresholds, and continuously strain Taiwan’s maritime law enforcement and defense resources below the threshold of open conflict.
Fang stated that the People’s Liberation Army Navy is already the world’s largest navy, while the China Coast Guard is also the world’s largest maritime law enforcement fleet. By contrast, Taiwan’s coast guard vessels and personnel remain limited, making it difficult for Taiwan to respond vessel-for-vessel to China’s high-frequency and multi-layered maritime pressure. Taiwan should therefore integrate uncrewed surface vessels, uncrewed underwater vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, and remotely operated vehicles into an asymmetric maritime defense architecture, rather than treating them merely as standalone procurement items.
Fang emphasized that the value of uncrewed maritime systems lies in extending maritime presence, strengthening surveillance and evidence collection, reducing personnel risk, preserving high-value crewed vessels, and raising an adversary’s operational costs across missions such as gray-zone monitoring, submarine cable protection, port security, mine countermeasures, and sea denial. Citing examples including the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Belgian-Dutch mine countermeasures program, U.S. Coast Guard deployments of uncrewed vessels, autonomous USV operations across the Taiwan Strait, uncrewed vessel employment in U.S.-Philippines military exercises, and Ukraine’s Black Sea USV campaign, she noted that international practice has demonstrated the utility of uncrewed maritime systems in persistent surveillance, maritime law enforcement support, littoral operations, mine countermeasures, and sea denial.
At the same time, Fang cautioned that Taiwan should not directly replicate foreign cases. The Taiwan Strait features more complex sea conditions, denser commercial maritime traffic, and potential Chinese threats such as electromagnetic suppression, cyberattacks, and navigation interference. International cases should therefore serve as references for mission applications and procurement requirements, while Taiwan’s final approach must be validated and adjusted according to its own geography, maritime conditions, and threat environment.
In her policy recommendations, Fang argued that Taiwan’s Coast Guard and Navy should develop different procurement specifications and operational models for uncrewed systems based on their respective missions. Coast Guard systems should prioritize gray-zone monitoring, maritime evidence collection, search and rescue, port security, submarine cable protection, and offshore-island surveillance. Navy systems, by contrast, should focus on delay, deception, attrition, mine countermeasures, and counter-landing operations. She further noted that the effectiveness of future uncrewed maritime systems will depend not only on platform numbers, but also on whether they can be integrated into a common operating picture, command-and-control chains, intelligence data architecture, maintenance capacity, operator training, and joint Navy–Coast Guard exercises.
Fang concluded that Taiwan’s core task in developing uncrewed maritime systems is to move from “buying platforms” to “building an architecture.” Only by adopting a mission-driven approach and integrating uncrewed surface and underwater systems into a cross-agency asymmetric defense framework can Taiwan achieve earlier detection, more effective evidence collection, more resilient infrastructure protection, and greater sea-denial capacity without competing with China vessel for vessel.
