Ashlee VanceNYT Best Seller | Reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek

China's Drone Show Can We Compete Tech Showdown!

15 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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In a brief conversational exchange, Speaker A observes a stark contrast between a modest display of two Skydio drones carried by soldiers at a Trump parade and a spectacular Chinese drone show featuring around 100,000 coordinated drones. The visual disparity prompts A to suggest that the United States has significant work to do to match China’s capabilities. Speaker B responds by questioning whether the United States can allocate enough strategic focus on China to address this technological gap. The dialogue highlights concerns about competitive parity in drone technology and the broader strategic attention required to keep pace with China’s large‑scale autonomous aerial displays.

I was looking at the Trump parade and there was like 2 soldiers carrying 2 Skydio drones in their hand. And then I just scrolled through my X feed and China was doing like a drone show with like 100,000 drones, this very intricate dance. Yeah, I just, I was like, okay, we got some work to do. Um, yeah.
Uh, and one of, you know, one of the things that I think is, um, you know, you, you talked a little bit about, are we gonna be able to focus enough on China?