Industry - AnalysisRSS Feed Defense Focus: China's weapons -- Part 3
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Industry/Analysis/2008/02/08/defense_focus_chinas_weapons_--_part_3/4698/
Published: Feb. 8, 2008 at 3:34 PM
UPI Senior News Analyst
WA****NGTON, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- The weapons that China wants from Russia
-- and that Moscow won't sell Beijing -- provide a remarkable insight
into the current transitional state of the Chinese arms industry.
For although China now has arguably the broadest low-tech industrial
base on Earth and a space development program that has more promise
and vastly more resources devoted to it than those of either the
United States or Russia, Beijing remains dependent on enormous
quantities of foreign im****ts for most of its crucial land weapons
systems.
Up to a few years ago, Chinese orders accounted for up to 40 percent
of Russian arms ex****t volumes worth $6.5 billion, but today they have
dramatically shrunk because of an enduring deadlock.
Russia wants to sell a lot of its older, cast-off weapons to China.
But China wants to buy Russia's most modern ones, especially ones that
can be used for land warfare. Beijing also wants co-production deals
so that it can buy the technology to make such weapons itself. Beijing
says it no longer needs relatively ineffective Russian weapons without
the relevant production licenses and that Moscow should start selling
more advanced, hard-hitting and high-tech weaponry and military
equipment.
Most im****tantly, China wants to launch their joint production, to
receive state-of-the-art defense technologies, inventions and
composite materials. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has proven
willing to make such deals with other countries. Within the last year
it has signed lucrative contracts with Venezuela to build factories to
manufacture Kalashnikov automatic rifles and other weapons and with
India to co-produce a supersonic cruise missile. But it flatly refuses
to make any such deals with China.
The Chinese armaments industry still cannot make any world-class Main
Battle Tank of its own. We know this because Beijing wants to buy
Russia's formidable T-90, but the Russians won't sell. However, they
have just concluded a multibillion-dollar contract to sell 347 T-90s
to India.
According to Russian experts, the General Armaments Department of the
People's Liberation Army wants to buy large batches of Russian-made
Shmel -- Bumblebee -- rocket infantry flame-throwers, 120mm Nona-SVK
and Vena self-propelled guns, 152mm Msta-S self-propelled artillery
systems, 300mm Smerch -- Tornado -- multiple-launch rocket systems --
MLRSs, BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, BTR-80 armored personnel
carriers -- APCs, Mil Mi-28N Havoc and Kamov Ka-50 Hokum "Black Shark"
attack helicopters, various types of 3-D radars, naval Shtil-1 R-29RM
-- SS-N-23 -- surface-to-air missiles on vertical launchers, as well
as electronic counter-measures -- ECM -- systems, Ka-27 and Helix
Ka-28 ****p-borne helicopters, know-how for manufacturing fourth-
generation and fifth-generation aircraft engines, highly alloyed
steels and other materials.
In other words, it can safely be said that China's arms industry, for
all the country's astoni****ng economic and industrial achievements, is
still incapable of making a vast range of weapons, especially for land
warfare and tactical air sup****t of ground operations that it must buy
from other sources.
China's domestic arms industry can be said to have hit a plateau, or
glass ceiling. It has reached maturity in a limited number of areas
where it does what it knows how to do extremely well. But the Chinese,
understandably, are not satisfied with that. They want to im****t the
technology and expertise to mass produce robust, state-of-the-art
weapons and combat equipment that is comparable with American, Western
and Indian output. The natural partner to help them climb this
industrial mountain is Russia. But so far, the Russians aren't
playing.
This continuing weakness has profound implications for China's
diplomacy, grand strategy and choice of conflicts it would be prepared
to undertake for many years to come.
--
Next: Why China needs Russia
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