NEW YORK, Nov 28: China’s swift development of unmanned aerial vehicles (AKA Drones) has set off alarm bells among US Defence analysts, according to a report which suggests China can “easily match or outpace US spending on unmanned systems, rapidly close the technology gaps and become a formidable global competitor in unmanned systems”.

The report which published in the New York Times on Wednesday said: “Israel, Britain and the United States have pretty much had a corner on the global drone market, but the recent Chinese air show and a Pentagon report have exploded that notion.”

The Chinese imposing fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles have a striking resemblance to the American aircrafts, the paper observed.

“In a worrisome trend, China has ramped up research in recent years faster than any other country,” said the unclassified analysis published in July by the Defence Science Board.

“It displayed its first unmanned system model at the Zhuhai air show five years ago, and now every major manufacturer for the Chinese military has a research centre devoted to unmanned systems.”

Two Chinese models on display at the Zhuhai show — the CH-4 and the Wing Loong, or Pterodactyl — appeared to be clones of the Reaper and Predator drones that are fixtures in the US arsenal. A larger drone, the Xianglong, or Soaring Dragon, is a long-range, high-altitude model that would seem to be a cousin of the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

Huang Wei, the director of the CH-4 programme at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told the state-run newspaper Global Times that his lightweight drone could carry cameras, ground-searching radar, missiles and smart bombs the NYT report said.

“As the Americans say,” Mr Huang said, “the U.A.V. is fit for missions that are dirty, dangerous and dull.” The paper reported that the drone's range of 3,500 kilometres, or about 2,200 miles, made it “ideal to conduct surveillance missions” over a small group of islands in the East China Sea.