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ChinaScience

Drone 007: Chinese military plans to replace human agents with machines in special operations overseas

  • Unlike in the fictional world of James Bond, in real life, dangerous military operations carry high risks for special forces
  • Scientists have been working with the PLA to develop a drone that can complete these missions without putting agents in danger

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The Chinese military has developed a drone that it hopes will replace human special ops agents for dangerous missions within the next 10 years. Photo: Shutterstock
Stephen Chenin Beijing

It is a perilous assignment: slip in unseen, strike hard and slip away again – all without a trace. Such special forces missions are the stuff of James Bond movies, but in the real world they are considerably more challenging to execute.

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No matter how exceptional real agents are, they struggle to achieve the invincibility portrayed by 007. And should they fall into enemy hands, it could spell trouble for military planners.

That is why, in the bustling city of Chengdu in southwest China, a unit of the People’s Liberation Army said it has been working closely with a team of scientists to develop drones that will be able to replace humans in complex overseas missions within the next 10 years.
Their unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can fly vast distances, dive deep underwater and lie in wait for long periods of time. At a command, it can spring from the water, race towards its target and then return unseen beneath the waves after delivering its fatal blow.

The Chinese government has always been vocal about its policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and the Chinese military is notoriously secretive about its operations overseas.

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But in a recent paper published in the Fire Control & Command Control journal, the PLA’s 78092 unit, which is involved in this project, revealed some details about a future hypothetical overseas special operations plan.

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