Combat Drones Made in China Are Coming to a Conflict Near You

By Bruce Einhorn

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A dozen years into its fight with the Islamic insurgent group Boko Haram, Nigeria is getting some new weapons: a pair of Wing Loong II drones from China. The deal is one of a growing number of sales by state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC), which has exported scores of the aircraft. The United Arab Emirates has used AVIC drones in Libya’s civil war, Egypt has attacked rebels in Sinai with them, and Saudi-led troops have deployed them in Yemen. The company’s drones “are now battle-tested,” says Heather Penney, a fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, a think tank in Arlington, Va. “They’ve been able to feed lessons learned back into their manufacturing.”

Nigeria is getting AVIC’s second generation of Wing Loongs—the name means “pterodactyl”—which can fly as fast as 230 mph and as high as 30,000 feet, carrying a payload of a dozen missiles. Since 2015, when AVIC introduced the newer model, it’s produced 50 for export and an unknown number for China’s People’s Liberation Army. And it’s working on even more advanced aircraft, such as a stealth combat drone with a flying-wing design similar to that of the U.S. B-2 bomber. The drone program, combined with deliveries of fighter jets, trainers, transporters, and assault helicopters, has propelled AVIC into the upper ranks of the global arms trade. In 2019 it sold military equipment valued at $22.5 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), placing it sixth in the world, behind five U.S. companies.