Far from rising, as so many Western pundits have predicted for so long, Russian arms sales to China may plummet by at least 75 percent in the immediate future, the CEO of Russia's main official arms exporting corporation warned last Wednesday.Arms exports to China could shrivel from the current 40 percent of the value of annual Russian arms exports to only 10 percent, Anatoly Isaikin, general director of Rosoboronexport, told the Moscow daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta in an interview published Feb. 4, RIA Novosti reported.
As we have reported often in these columns, Sino-Russian relations have soured in recent years over one key issue: the continuing refusal of the Russian government under both Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev to sell China any of the long shopping list of advanced, expensive ground warfare and Close Air Support weapons that China still cannot produce but desperately needs to become a truly formidable major military power.
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Russia inadvertently building up China as an arms trade competitor would also be colouring Russian attitudes.
ReplyDeleteThis is because China has been manufacturing Russian designed weapons (including aircraft and subs) then offering them for sale internationally.
Pete