Taiwan has put a new law on the books to build up its own drone industry — good news for local manufacturers and defense suppliers, and a signal that Taipei wants to lock in a place in the Western tech supply chain.

• The law strengthening defense self-reliance and drone manufacturing cleared parliament in late August and is now formally in force.
• The economics ministry will lead industrial policy, arguing that neither national security nor an industrial upgrade can wait.
• Drones pull together machinery, electronics, communications, AI, sensors, and cybersecurity, so the push is meant to lift several industries at once.
• Defense procurement and anything touching military secrets stays under the defense ministry's control.

Outlook: The next fight is over money — the economics ministry is already asking for broad political backing when the budget for this program comes up.