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(CNN) --
With the sun shining, drinks on the table and music in the air, it looks like the young people in the video, which has gone viral on Chinese social media, picked a great day for a picnic.
Dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts, shorts and sandals, and chattering jovially in Mandarin as they slouch over a controller and screen, it's hard to believe they could be up to something shady...until one of them excitedly yells, "Whoa! I have a tank!"
But these men are not playing a computer game.
They are flying drones over a military facility on a nearby island controlled by Taiwan.
The 15-second video is one of several that have recently surfaced on the Chinese social network Weibo showing what appear to be civilian drones patrolling Taiwan's military.
The island's military later confirmed that these mysterious threats are actually civilian drones originating from mainland China.
The videos show detailed drone-view footage of military installations and personnel on Taiwan's outlying islands, Kinmen.
Accompanied by soundtracks ranging from ballads to dance music and plenty of emojis, the clips seem designed to highlight the unpreparedness of Taiwan's troops.
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A video captures the moment four Taiwanese soldiers realize they are being watched by a drone flying over their guard post.
Surprised, they respond by throwing stones at the intruding drone, which gets so close that the faces of the soldiers can be made out.
Images of these strange encounters have gone viral on Chinese social media, attracting hundreds of comments mocking the Taiwanese military.
The clips appear to expose a staggering vulnerability: the ability of Chinese drones to photograph restricted military sites in Taiwan at any time.
Taiwanese soldiers can be clearly seen in the drone footage.
The gray zone war
Analysts say the images being spread online - showing military sites and personnel in minute detail for all the world to see - are at best embarrassing for Taiwan and at worst downright dangerous. .
The drone raids come amid heightened tensions following a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy of nearly 24 million people, in August.
That trip angered China's ruling Communist Party -- which regards Taiwan as part of its territory, despite never having ruled it -- and responded by launching unprecedented military exercises around the island, sending warplanes across the strait from Taiwan and firing missiles at the main island.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has claimed that the drone strikes are the latest increase in this pressure;
a new front in China's "grey zone" war tactics to intimidate the island.
On September 1, after warning that it would exercise its right to self-defense, Taiwan shot down a drone for the first time.
But as provocative as the images are, it's hard to know exactly who is behind the drone raids.
Beijing has dismissed drone raids as "no big deal".
Asked about civilian drones flying in the Kinmen area, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman recently responded: "Chinese drones flying over China's territory... what is there to be surprised about?"
To fuel suspicion, China has not removed the videos from its otherwise heavily censored internet, nor has it prevented drones from traveling through its own highly controlled airspace.
Beijing also doesn't seem interested in trying to punish those responsible for the images;
the flight of drones over national military installations is punishable by prison sentences.
Drone footage shows a Taiwanese military emplacement on the Kinmen Islands.
"Deniable Harassment"
Isabel Hilton, an international journalist and long-time China watcher, said it was impossible to know who was piloting the drones, and that was precisely what made them so well suited for "deniable stalking."
The devices appear to be civilian models, but could "be operated by anyone, even the military," said Hilton, founder of China Dialogue, suggesting "government agencies in the guise of a grassroots movement" could be behind the controls.
Hilton drew a parallel to developments in the South China Sea, where China has been accused of using a maritime militia to assert its territorial claims by swarming disputed areas with hundreds of apparently civilian fishing boats.
Western experts say the militia - sometimes dubbed China's "Little Blue Men" - is funded and controlled by the People's Liberation Army.
China does not acknowledge their existence and, when asked, refers to them as a "so-called maritime militia".
In both arenas, the ideal outcome for China is to gain an advantage "without the military appearing to be involved," Hilton said.
"Whether fishing boats or civilian drones are used, it doesn't seem like official policy. It doesn't look like direct military harassment like a warplane incursion is. So it's a deniable provocation."
Hilton said drones are not only for reconnaissance -- "flying very low over military installations or taking very clear photos of individually identifiable soldiers" -- but could also have a psychological impact on soldiers, who "find their faces very clearly put on Chinese social media, where they are liable to be insulted and where people can ask to be killed."
Taiwanese media have reported that this exposure could damage the morale of the island's soldiers.
"This is all very demoralizing for the Taiwanese people, and it's being held at a level that's designed to not let Taiwan relax, to not let Taiwan forget the threat," Hilton said.
"(It is) designed to remind Taiwan that it cannot escape Chinese pressure, and that in the end China will take control. That is the purpose."
A Taiwanese commander points to a map showing recent drone incursions.
drone trolls
But not everyone suspects the invisible hand of the Chinese military.
Paul Huang, a researcher at the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation, a nonprofit nongovernmental think tank, believes the drones are operated by private civilians who "perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of nationalism" want to provoke Taiwan.
"Flying so close to a Taiwanese military guard post and drawing their attention... That's not really the way an army would deploy or use their drones. And frankly, I don't see any good reason for the (People's Army of Liberation) try something like that," Huang said.
However, he and Hilton agree that Beijing could stop the drone strikes if it wanted to, but it doesn't because it sees an advantage in letting them continue.
"Beijing (sees the raids) as an attempt by its own population to annoy Taiwan, to provoke Taiwan, to make fun of Taiwan's incompetence. They treat it as a propaganda victory," Huang said.
China Dialogue's Hilton said Beijing "definitely plays a double game here."
"Beijing, as we know, controls its own domestic internet, controls domestic airspace. If this happens, it's because the government wants it to happen."
Taiwanese soldiers fire flares to warn drones flying near Taiwan's outlying islands.
shifting threat
Taiwan has faced the threat of invasion since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's defeated nationalists fled there to establish a new government, after being expelled from mainland China by Mao Zedong's Communist Party. .
More than 70 years later, the Communist Party still views Taiwan as something akin to a breakaway province that must be "reunified" with the mainland at all costs, and has made it clear that it is willing to use force, if necessary, to meet that goal.
If China were to invade, the Kinmen Islands - most of which have been controlled by Taiwan since the end of the war - would be a tempting first target.
Located just a few miles from the Chinese city of Xiamen - and hundreds of miles from Taiwan's capital, Taipei - they are highly vulnerable.
Anti-landing spikes placed along the coast of Taiwan's Kinmen Islands, located just off the Chinese coast.
For this reason, over the past seven decades Kinmen's beaches have been lined with countless iron spikes designed to make any assault by sea as costly as possible for an invading force.
For Taiwan, the problem is that the nature of that invading force is changing.
The proximity of the Kinmen Islands to the mainland puts them within range of commercially available drones, which are cheap and plentiful in China, which is home to the world's second-largest market for drones and there is no shortage of potential operators. among its 1,400 million inhabitants.
And while iron spikes may be useful in a beachside invasion, they won't do much good against a drone operator patrolling Taiwan's military from the safety of a Xiamen park.
fighting back
However, Huang says that Beijing may come to regret not having stopped the trolls, whoever they are.
He said Taiwan could ask DJI, the China-based manufacturer whose logo appeared in some of the troll videos, to make the Kinmen Islands a restricted area in its database, a move that would prevent operators from flying. the drones there.
If DJI were to refuse to comply with the order, Taiwan could exclude it from its market, dealing a further blow to a company that has already been placed on a US investment blacklist for its alleged ties to the Chinese state.
DJI, the world's leading drone maker, declined to comment to CNN for this article.
And Beijing's "propaganda victory" may have other unintended consequences.
Shortly after the series of drone raids, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense announced that the island would deploy a new anti-drone system to military bases starting next year.
It also announced plans to increase its overall defense budget to a record $19.4 billion, a 13.9% increase from 2022.
"(China) doesn't really see a problem so far, which I think they should, because this could lead to an escalation that they didn't want. If they want to be in control, they better control these civilian drone operators first," Huang said. .
Taiwan shows off an anti-drone weapon in this photo released by its Defense Ministry.
Taiwan, for its part, seems to have realized that ignoring drones and their mysterious operators is not an option.
Just days after shooting down his first drone, he posted a series of photos to the media showing off his shiny new anti-drone weapons.
He seemed to be sending his own propaganda message: the next time the drones come to visit him, he will be prepared.
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