China the largest importer of Russian-made weapons
Mikhail Khodarenok RIA Novosti Moscow
On May 30 Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov went on an official visit to China, where he will meet with the Chinese leadership. The relatively weak innovation potential of China's defence industries forced Beijing to try to modernise its army by importing weapons and technologies. In particular, the modernisation of the Chinese air force and navy relies heavily on military-technical cooperation with Moscow.
China has bought 48 Su-27 fighters and a license for their production. These planes were created to win superiority in the air and cannot deliver strikes at ground-based targets or ships. After Russia signed a contract on the delivery of multifunctional Su-30MK planes to India, Beijing wondered if it could acquire nearly a hundred of such planes. The first ten fighters of the "four plus" generation were delivered by Russia in 2000.
China also wants to raise the fighting ability of its navy. The first step towards this was the acquisition of two 956E-class destroyers in Russia. These are multifunctional ships with the displacement of nearly 8,000 tons. The main advantage of these destroyers is that they are armed with the Mosquito anti-ship missile system with two four-barrel launchers for the 3M-80 cruise missiles. Flying at an extremely low altitude and making complicated manoeuvres to evade air defence systems, these supersonic missiles was put on combat duty in 1984 and still has no analogues in the world.
The two destroyers, equipped with such powerful air protection, can dramatically change the balance of naval forces in East and South East Asia and considerably reduce the U.S. ability to pressurise regional countries merely by dispatching its aircraft carriers there, as it did during the latest crisis in the Taiwan Strait. China and Russia have signed a new contract on the delivery of two more warships of a similar class.
Beijing also wants to have Russian-made submarines. In May this year the two countries signed a contract on the delivery of ten 636-class submarines. Experts believe that China may subsequently organise the production of these submarines at home.
The signing late last year of two contracts on the delivery of S-300PMU air defence missile systems to China was a major achievement of bilateral military-technical cooperation. In addition, China would like to buy large batches of the Shmel infantry jet fire-throwers, self-propelled artillery systems, BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, the Smerch 300mm multiple- launch rocket systems, 152mm self-propelled howitzers, three- dimensional radars of different types, reconnaissance and radio- electronic warfare systems, the Ka-27 deck-top helicopters, and licenses for the production of quite a few weapons and hardware.
The Russian defence producers widely believe that bilateral military-technical cooperation between the two countries should be viewed in a broader context of their foreign economic relations. They assume that strategic partnership in the sphere of high technologies should rise to a fundamentally new level, moving from the trade and intermediary model of the late 20th century to a cooperation-investment model, which will be basic in the new century.
Either country has the requisite research-technological and financial resources, as well as the political will for this. The strategic partnership between Russia and China in the sphere of high technologies has a vast potential that engenders an optimistic view of the future of the military-economic balance in Asia Pacific.
The share of China in the overall volume of Russia's military exports may reach 30-50 percent in the next few years.