Media revealed that Taiwan has started using unmanned surveillance aircraft to spy on the deployment of Chinese missiles.

"The army in March commissioned a fleet of 32 unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, developed by the military-run Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology," the Liberty Times said, the Voice of Russia reported.

"Initially the drones, based in the eastern county of Taitung, were watching airspace in the East and South but lately they had extended their range to the Taiwan Strait," the daily added.

"Now they can effectively monitor China's military movements in the southeastern coastal area," the daily quoted an unnamed senior officer at the defense ministry as saying.

The paper said the operation had attracted interest from the United States which had been using the sophisticated high-altitude Global Hawk drone to collect military intelligence on China.

"The US raised the topic during a recent military exchange program with Taiwan," it said.

Taiwan's defense ministry declined to comment on the report.

Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have eased since President Ma Ying-jeou's China-friendly administration came to power in 2008 on a platform of strengthening trade and tourism links. He was re-elected in January 2012.

But Beijing has still not ruled out the use of force against the island should it declare independence, even though the two sides have been ruled separately since their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, the report said.

EA