Russia Loses China Arms Race

By: Pravda

Russia is losing the Chinese arms market. An official spokesman for Russia's defense export giant Rosoboronexport, Sergey Kornev, stated at Airshow China 2010 that the amount of orders between Russia and China had dropped because the Chinese market had been saturated with arms. It particularly goes about the aviation technology. Russia, the official stated, has delivered 280 Su fighters to China during the recent years.

The USA has been showing more concerns about China's growing military threat against such a background. Experts of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated in their report that the USA had lost the military predominance in the region. It was also said that China was already capable of destroying five of six US army bases in the Pacific Ocean.

In the nearest future, China will be able to significantly change the balance of forces in South-East Asia. The increased opportunities of Chinese missile and airborne troops are capable of hampering the operations conducted by US armed forces in the region. As a result, the movement of American troops in the region will be restricted, the experts said in their recent report. Chinese combat vessels have been showing more activity recently in the Yellow, South China and East China seas.

China is particularly concerned about the fact that the USA took the side of Japan in the territorial dispute between Japan and China for Senkaku islands. In addition, the authors of the report admit that the American experts underestimated the speed of modernization and strengthening of the Chinese army. In 2009, they believed that China would have its own fifth-generation jet not earlier than in 2025, but now they say it will happen much earlier - already in 2018.

Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis believes that China does not choose Russia as its partner on the arms market indeed.

"China is refusing from purchasing Russian arms. China has already bought what it needed, and since Russia has nothing else to offer, it is not going to sign any large deals in the future anymore. Indeed, China's military power poses a threat for the United States. I would like to repeat it again that from Russia, China purchased only the arms required for a possible armed conflict with the United States. It goes about aviation and navy first and foremost - the country was not interested in tanks or any other weapons of the ground forces.

"China's conflict with the USA can become real indeed, and the American military have all reasons for concerns. Wars mostly start because of natural resources. China has recently become the world's largest consumer of oil, and the nation's needs in fuel will only grow. Consequently, the country's competition with the United States will be growing stronger too. China has already pushed American and European competitors out from Africa.

"Unlike the USA, China does not pay attention to the organization of political regimes, with which the country cooperates. The Chinese simply bribe political elites of third world countries and use them to obtain control over resources," the expert said.

Military expert Vladislav Shurygin:

"China has been actively developing its armed forces recently. The final goal of the reform of the Chinese army is the ability to oppose to a powerful and technologically developed state. First and foremost, it goes about the USA. One should not think, however, that the competition between these two countries has reached the point when a war is about to begin. An armed conflict between the two giants is not going to happen at least during the upcoming five or seven years. For the time being, we can only witness the growing opposition in the US-Chinese relations, in the Cold War spirit between the USSR and the West.

"Russia has contributed greatly to the development of the Chinese armed forces. Fifteen years of active military cooperation were extremely important for the two countries. Nowadays, China has to develop its own defense complex, because Russia has nothing else to offer. Therefore, Russia will continue to lose its positions on the international arms market. China is now interested in purchasing arms in small batches to be able to copy the technology for its own industry," the expert said.

Sergey Balmasov

Pravda.ru

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