China price coming for fighter planes, submarines, destroyers and other weapons

Countries importing weapons used to have to buy second hand cold war weapons but will be buying more capable replicas of American and Russian weapons for two to four times lower cost. Joseph E. Lin writes about the flood of cheap weapons that will flood the global market in Foreign Policy.

China’s weapons in general will not be more powerful or superior to the Russian and American systems but they will be competitive in capability but at lower cost.

China has reverse engineered and stolen Russian, French and American military technology.

China stole the F-35 stealth technology but did not copy the bad design choice of using a lift fan. China copied Russian military gear but improved the electronics.

China is making and selling modern main battle tanks, submarines, fighter planes, bombers, destroyer and many other systems.

The lower China price helped drive down the cost of large flat screen TVs, solar panels and many other products and they increased the volume of global adoption. The low cost but highly capable weapons will increase the number of well armed countries.

MBT 3000 is made for export

Nextbigfuture has long agreed with the aviation experts who say that J31 copied the F35

China has also reverse engineered Russian plane technology

China sold Pakistan six 041 diesel electric submarines

China and India remain two of the world’s largest arms importers, accounting for 5 and 15 percent, respectively, of the global arms trade from 2010 to 2014. Neither country’s defense industry is capable of meeting all of the needs of its military, so for the foreseeable future, they will remain dependent on Russia and the West, especially with regard to complex platforms and technologies, such as anti-submarine warfare aircraft and jet engines.

India had to pay $2.2 billion instead of $1 billion for a Russian Aircraft Carrier

India had a lot of problems with the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier that it bought from Russia

The aircraft has defective boilers and many other problems.

If China delivers modern weapon designs that are capable and competitive with Russian and US systems, then China is likely to approach the market share of the USA and Russia in the global weapons market.

If China is selling weapons at four times lower cost, then the amount of weappons will likely go up in volume by 4-8 times. The global military budgets will not shrink but hold study and could double if regional arms races were triggered.

China sales successes

Chinese military sales included those of armored vehicles and transport and trainer aircraft to Venezuela, three frigates to Algeria, anti-ship missiles to Indonesia and unmanned combat aerial vehicles, or drones, to Nigeria, which is battling the Boko Haram insurgency in its north.

China’s comparative advantages include its low prices, easy financing and friendliness toward authoritarian governments, said Philip Saunders, director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the U.S. National Defense University.

“Generally speaking, China offers medium quality weapons systems at affordable prices, a combination attractive to cash-strapped militaries in South Asia, Africa and Latin America,” Saunders said.

Notable successes include a co-production deal with Pakistan to produce the JF-17 fighter, widespread sales of the basic but effective C-802 anti-ship cruise missile, and an agreement to sell the HQ-9 air defense missile system to Turkey that has run into controversy over its incompatibility with NATO weapons systems.

China also has exploited niche markets such as North Korea and Iran that the West won’t sell to, emphasizing its attractiveness to impoverished countries and pariah states, said Ian Easton, research fellow at The Project 2049 Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based Asian security think tank.

Both those U.S. foes appear to have received satellite jamming and cyber warfare capabilities from China, along with technologies to break into private communications and spy on government opponents, Easton said.

China also offers leading-edge drone technology at competitive prices. One model, known variously as the Yilong, Wing Loong or Pterodactyl, has become especially popular with foreign buyers, although Chinese secrecy surrounding such sales makes it difficult to know how many are in use and where.

The unmanned aircraft, which can be armed with two guided missiles, would cost only about $1 million each. That is about 10 to 20 percent of the price of a comparable U.S. model such as the MQ-1 Predator. Rumored buyers include the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia.

China is making a lot of military sales in Africa

SOURCES – War is Boring, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Foreign Policy, military.com

1 thought on “China price coming for fighter planes, submarines, destroyers and other weapons”

  1. usa needs to bulid more submarines. I want at least 10 extra columbia class submarine. I say put a mix of missiles EMP, low yield nukes Hypersonics, and standard stealth cruise missiles. also we need 15 new AIP submarines. I say we just buy them from Sweeden. The usa needs 100 submarines. state of the art ones. one last thing we need a stealth fighter/bomber that has 1500 mile range internaly. it should have a weapons bay that is modular and is 2 time the size of the f 35. with external tanks it can fly 4000 miles We need 100 of them. If i was super rich i would buy this stuff for my country. it would only cost 100 billion. maybe bill or warren can help

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