Hopefully the drone ships will be equipped with a self-destruct feature. If boarded, and the boarders fail to enable a password to defeat the self-destruct, bye-bye Chinese and their ships alongside.
So we’re going (relatively cheap) drone ships and let Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese fisherman blow themselves up? Not that I necessarily care about a dumb-ass fisherman bent on pillaging, but the exchange of a ship — even an automated one — for a peasant doesn’t seem to be an even exchange for us. I actually figure the PLAN will just shred them when they see them. Then what?