While China increases its military spending, it’s also re-evaluating a formerly burgeoning arms trade with Russia. Earlier this decade China ordered more than $2 billion in weapons and defense technology from Russia yearly. This year there are no major contracts in the pipeline though, the International Herald Tribune reports.
As Russia’s economy has improved they no longer need the cash from arms sales, analysts say.
A halt or slowdown in Russian arms deliveries could hamper the Chinese drive to modernize its military. It would also increase pressure on the Chinese arms industry to innovate. Some Western and Russian military experts say they believe that despite decades of intensive effort, Chinese arms makers are still struggling to master the advanced engineering skills needed to build important hardware.
In China, there is confidence that these problems will be solved. “The Russians can maintain their lead for a certain period, but eventually we will catch up,” said Shen Dingli, an international affairs analyst at Fudan University in Shanghai. “China will be a formidable technological competitor to anybody.”
China also no longer wants Russia’s older, cold war weapons though, and Russia will not always sell newer arms to a possible rival, according to United Press International.
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.
Historically, China and Russia have fought over territory in the Russia Far East and still compete over energy, water and immigration issues.
