Eurasia's Ascent in Energy and Geopolitics: Rivalry or Partnership for China, Russia, and Central Asia? by Robert E. Bedeski & Niklas Swanström

Author:Robert E. Bedeski & Niklas Swanström [Bedeski, Robert E. & Swanström, Niklas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781136306402
Google: odHRiKIpQ44C
Goodreads: 17537869
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Arms sales

Russia's defence relationship with China transcends the question of arms sales and functions as a major part of its overall ties with its ally. Of all the countries to whom Russia sells weapons and defence technologies (e.g. airplane engines), China is clearly the most important, because of the evolution of Chinese defence posture which materially affects Russia's own defence planning. Although the ‘Chinese threat’ is the unnamed threat in Russia's political and defence rhetoric, with very few writers commenting publicly about the development and future trajectory of Chinese defence policy, it is clear that Russia monitors those trends. Furthermore, there are some who have reservations about selling arms to China, and defence policy takes a possible Chinese threat to Russian Asia into account.77 Occasionally, such views are aired in conjunction with its arms sales to China. One recent Russian report speculated that the delay in selling China advanced military transports, the Il-76, were related to concerns about China's rising military power.78 However, a rift occurred in 2007–10 between the Kremlin, which seeks to preserve its close relationship with Beijing, and the interests of the Russian arms industry, which, despite seeking to benefit from arms sales, wants to preserve its technology and prevent it from falling into the hands of Chinese companies.79

From 1990 to 2007, Russia sold China $25 billion worth of weapons. Russian defence industries desperately needed the contracts from China to stay solvent, and Chinese military procurement options were constrained by Western sanctions (still in effect) imposed in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. China's defence industrial sector was also far behind that of Western firms in its capability to furnish the domestic military with necessary modern weapons. This, along with political and strategic factors, indicated a clear convergence of state and military interests. Nonetheless, there were many unreported production problems.80 A three-way contract with Uzbekistan and Russia to build Il-76 military transports and Il-78 tankers was annulled by Tashkent. Russia fulfilled its contract to manufacture the engines but its other partner failed to make the airframes.81 In other cases, 200 Su-27SK fighter jets were contracted under licence but only 105 were completed, ‘whereupon China unilaterally terminated the contract’. Therefore, sales fell precipitously in 2007 to a near vanishing point (i.e. just $700 million of new contracts).82

This prospect caused considerable alarm in Russia's defence industrial complex, exacerbated by the 2007 economic crisis. China bought many weapons platforms not currently needed but it seeks the technologies associated with them, the right to joint development and production, and Russian state-of-the-art weapons.83 China's main focus is now indigenizing not just Russian, but also foreign technologies, so it can master the means to make its own weapon systems. Moreover, this indigenization or, to put it bluntly, this copying and piracy of Russian systems for production under different labels, has become the most acrimonious element in the bilateral relationship. Russian statements indicate that China's intellectual piracy is eroding mutual trust between them. The most blatant case of Chinese pirating is the Russian-made SU-27 UBK fighter and its relabeling as the J-11B.

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