THE DYNAMICS OF RUSSIAN WEAPON SALES TO CHINA

Stephen J. Blank

March 4, 1997
ii

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iii

FOREWORD

Russia has recently sold or transferred many military

weapons or technologies to China. Russian state policy has also

officially joined with China in a relationship described as a

strategic cooperative partnership. Some Russian diplomats also

say that there is virtually complete identity with China on all

issues of Asian and global security. Dr. Stephen Blank examines

this relationship carefully for what it reveals about both

states' international security policies.

As he focuses on Russian arms sales to China, he finds that

these sales and China policy, in general, reveal much that is

disturbing about the nature of the Russian policy process and

Russia's profile in Asia. Indeed, it appears that Russia needs

China more than China needs Russia and that Russia has lost

control of the policy process. Arms manufacturers are making

their own deals with China, bypassing the government. Their

actions reflect the broader picture by which private sectors or

lobbies are able to capture control of Russian state policy and

manipulate it to their own interest, not to a discernible Russian

national interest.

Russian policy increasingly appears to be moving toward a

confrontation with the United States from which only China will

gain as a state, while private Russian interests also profit at

the expense of Russia's strategic position. The anti- American

aspects of this process also apparently accord with the widely

reported Chinese suspicions about U.S. policy. For this reason,

the evolving nature of the Russo-Chinese relationship is or

should be of utmost interest to policymakers and analysts alike.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this

report as a contribution to the informed debate regarding Russian

and Chinese policies, and U.S. relations with both states.

RICHARD H. WITHERSPOON

Colonel, U.S. Army

Director, Strategic Studies Institute
iv

BIOSKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

STEPHEN J. BLANK is the Douglas MacArthur Professor of Research

at the U.S. Army War College and has been an Associate Professor

of Russian/Soviet Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute

since 1989. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Blank was Associate

Professor for Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace

Doctrine, Research, and Education of Air University at Maxwell

Air Force Base. Dr. Blank's M.A. and Ph.D. are in Russian history

from the University of Chicago. He has published numerous

articles on Soviet/Russian military and foreign policies, notably

in the Third World, and is the author of The Sorcerer as

Apprentice: Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities, 1917-1924

(Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994).
v

SUMMARY

For the past few years China has acquired substantial

amounts of Russian military and dual-use technologies. These

acquisitions are a key element of the rapidly developing RussoChinese entente and play a prominent role in their mutual

relationship. But the arms sales also reveal much about the

nature of Russia's policy process.

Arms sales are now critical to Russian defense industry

because the state cannot afford to procure weapons for its own

forces. Exports remain essentially this industry's sole source of

income. Although many defense firms have received subsidies of

one sort or another, and even recently obtained their own

ministry to defend their interests, only if they export can they

be sure of surviving. China's hunger for weapons imports matches

Russia's need and creates a perfect fit between both sides. But

close examination of this industry's activities indicates that it

is selling China state-of-the-art systems and weapons or

licenses, like the license for the SU-27 Fighter, without

government authorization. In other words, Russia's government has

lost control over its arms sales program but dares not react

negatively, despite the military implications of such transfers

for its own security.

The reasons for this are essentially two-fold. One is that

under President Boris Yeltsin a privatization of state policy has

taken place. Private lobbies, sectors, and factions are able to

seize control of state policy and state assets and exploit them

exclusively for their own narrow interests. No concept of

national interest operates here even though these groups

invariably choose to present their activities in the light of

advancing Russian national interest. For example, arms sellers

argue that now that they can sell freely abroad, their program of

unrestricted sales will allow Russia to compete with the United

States in Asia and save its defense industry in the bargain.

These arguments neglect deeper strategic analyses of China's

objectives in Asia and the general Asian security balance. They

focus singlemindedly on getting state subsidies and cash, much of

which goes unreported or into private bank accounts. In effect,

China is able to exploit these industries' and officials' greed,

and the absence of central coordination to get the best deals for

itself. So the first reason why the government does not stop the

uncontrollable and uncontrolled sales is its inability to do so

at a time when officials also obtain private gains.

 The second reason pertains to Russia's policy perspectives,

which view China increasingly as a strategic partner and, even in

some official or quasi-official documents, as an ally. This

partnership is explicitly directed against the United States as a
vi

power that allegedly seeks to restrict Russia's and China's

pursuit of their national interests. Russian spokesmen say China

supports the reunification of the Commonwealth of Independent

States (CIS) under Russian auspices, opposes NATO expansion,

offers markets for Russian producers besides arms firms, and

supports Russia's participation in Asian international fora. Of

course Beijing knows that Russia needs it to enter organizations

like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and exploits

that understanding in every way possible, since Russia is the

demandeur in the relationship. Still, Russian policy, despite

complaints by several public figures and military men concerning

its strategic implications, is firmly pro-Chinese and evidently

seeks to align itself on every issue of Asian and international

security with Beijing.

Increasingly, Russia is associating itself with China's

policies for Asia and its outlook on world politics, seeing in

this a way to obtain greater leverage as one of the poles of the

emerging multipolar world. But while Russia obtains some cash

(not as much as one would expect given the costs of these

systems) and psychological or intangible benefits, China

registers material gains. Russia plays gendarme for China in the

volatile Central Asia, sparing China the need to intervene there

to seal off the area from its rebellious Xinjiang province. China

gets badly needed weapons, technology, and the services of

Russian scientists at a low relative cost. It gains permanent

leverage among regional and central lobbies who are influential

players in the Russian policy process as well as a hold on many

corrupt Russian officials. Beijing obtains support for its

policies in Taiwan and, vis-a-vis ASEAN and the Spratly Islands

issue, China also has won Moscow's support for its domestic

programs that repress human rights. Russia pointedly ignores

China's domestic repression of human rights which remains a

source of tension in the Sino-U.S. relationship.

All these factors suggest that Russo-Chinese ties signal a

relationship that is being driven by China's strategic interests

and the private interests of Russia's arms dealers and other

anti-Western elites as much, if not more, than by a reasoned

calculation of Russian strategic or national interest. The

bilateral relationship, despite U.S. complacency about it until

now, has gone beyond normalization and friendship. But in view of

the fact that much of Russian security policy is clearly out of

control and being driven by China and a visceral anti-Americanism

in Moscow, we need to show greater interest and concern over the

evolving character of Russo-Chinese relationships.
1

THE DYNAMICS OF RUSSIAN WEAPON SALES TO CHINA

Since 1991 Russia has sold or transferred significant

numbers of weapons and military technologies to China.1 These

arms sales and technology transfers have aroused considerable

interest and apprehension abroad because of the uncertain

direction of Chinese policies. Since China's military interests

focus on Taiwan and the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea,

foreign interest, as well, focuses on how Russian weapons affect

the development of China's strategy and capabilities. As a

result, analysts have overlooked the dynamics and motives of

Russia's arms sales policies and how they affect Russia's

position in the Sino-Russian relationship.

Russian Motives for Arms Sales to China.

Russia's arms sales must be seen in the context of its

overall arms sales policy, its relations with China, and the

global arms trade. Arms sales are critical to Russian defense

industry and planners because the defense industry cannot survive

on the basis of domestic procurements alone. Since Russia has yet

to devise a coherent research and development (R&D) and military

spending program, and cannot subsidize its defense industry as

before, whole sectors of this industry either face an economic

crash, or say they do. Since they lost the battle for state

credits for domestic production and procurement, defense

industrialists have consistently urged President Boris Yeltsin's

government to subsidize them and give them as much freedom and

control as possible in selling arms abroad.2 Recently, facing a

stiff presidential campaign, Yeltsin announced plans for a $4

billion subsidy and elevated the officials who supervised and

lobbied for defense industry to ministerial status.3 This action

gave defense industry greater latitude and scope to continue to

sell weapons with state consent, including state-of-the-art

technologies and platforms even before the Russian military gets

them.4

A second, urgent reason for the defense industry to sell

abroad pertains to Russian defense policy. After 1991 and the

breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia's military leadership faced a

choice between preserving as many forces and divisions as

possible and investing heavily in future technologies and

systems. Like other militaries facing similar, if not so severe,

fiscal stringencies, Moscow opted for readiness and force

structure at the expense of military-technological R&D for the

future.5 Consequently, Moscow cannot afford the forces it

currently maintains.6 Indeed, nobody knows how many men are

actually serving in one or another of the 22-24 armed forces

legally operating in a country of 147 million people whose Gross
2

National Product (GNP) has fallen 40 percent since 1991. But the

total is at least 2.5 million and probably closer to 3 or 3.5

million. Thus, the Ministry of Defense desperately seeks added

revenues which could be gotten by selling surplus equipment. And

due to the force reductions imposed by the Conventional Armed

Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and the vast overproduction that

has continued, in some cases, since 1991, Russia has many

attractive weapons to sell, particularly combat aircraft.7 These

aircraft were often new models that were "in the pipeline" when

the Soviet Union collapsed and must be sold abroad if any of

their costs are to be amortized.

Another result of the choices made since 1991 is that the

defense industry has been starved and cannot survive by procuring

high-tech modern weapons. Firms cannot sell enough of them at

home to justify the large initial capital investments that must

be made when producing these systems. Hence exports become the

only way out. From the standpoint of the defense industry and the

military officials favoring massive arms sales, all of whom face

a threat to survival, it makes no sense to hold back existing

systems on the grounds of military secrets when they have newer,

substantially more effective, systems in development.8 The

imperatives of arming Russian forces with good weapons or of not

altering the military balance with China do not enter into their

calculations, and they incessantly blame the various state

supervisory organs for not giving them a free hand and for their

"evil stupidity" in restraining them by bureaucratic monitoring

of exports.9

Moreover, many elements in these groups still believe that

Russia has unique advantages due to the supposed cheapness of its

labor relative to the West. They ignore the facts that due to the

spiraling costs of technology and weapons and the diffusion of

production know-how and technology abroad, the arms market is in

long-term decline, and Russia is not uniquely competitive as a

supplier. Instead, arms exports only offer a short-term solution.

Concentration on exports as a substitute for conversion endangers

the entire domestic base of defense industrial production and

precludes a policy of choosing which defense firms survive and

which will undergo dissolution and bankruptcy.10 In other words,

the concentration on weapons for export will work against reform

of the defense industry and its true conversion to market

economics.

Thus, given the pressures generated by the defense industry

and elements of the Ministry of Defense, the tremendous struggles

for power atop the Russian government are unlikely to reverse the

trend to free the arms sellers in their foreign activities. Nor

is Russia likely to take full account of the portents in the

world arms market. Instead, as the new Minister for Defense

Industry, Zinovy Pak, suggested, all elements of the defense
3

industry, whether privatized or not, are demanding and need state

subsidies.11 In view of this lobby's proven power to pump

resources out of the government, it is likely that the

fundamentally unreformed defense industry will increase its

leverage, particularly as large-scale financial-industrial groups

join with the defense industry and add their market power to the

defense industry's political access and economic standing.12

Whoever takes control of the program will have to push arms sales

seriously, if for no other reason than because only those firms

who can export can survive in Russia and in today's global arms

market. But perhaps equally telling in the Russian context will

be those domestic pressures for preserving as much as possible of

the defense industry in only this quasi-reformed state.

Another reason for the importance of arms sales to the

government is the money that accrues both to corrupt officials

and to the defense industry. These funds reduce the prospect of

massive layoffs and bankruptcies in that critical sector. In

addition, elites involved in the transfer of arms or technologies

with significant military applications have apparently persuaded

the regime that arms sales advance Russia's military leverage and

influence abroad. Certainly this argument has long applied to

Russia's deals with Iran. Those arms sales have been justified

since 1992 on the grounds that they help keep the Caucasus and

Central Asia quiet by making Iran depend on Russian arms.

Therefore Iran will not foment unrest in the Muslim areas of the

CIS.13 These groups claim that the same argument applies to Asia.

A recent commentary on arms sales observed that,

The active promotion of Russian armaments in the AsiaPacific Region is leading to a new balance of power

taking shape there, in which the United States will no

longer play the decisive role. Incidentally, it is not

only there that this is happening. We have achieved

considerable success over the past few years in Latin

American countries which opens up good prospects for

the Russian military industrial complex.14

Nor is this an isolated example of arms industry boosterism.

Pavel Felgengauer, Russia's most prominent defense correspondent

who is close to the General Staff and MOD, wrote recently that

they and defense industrialists believe that China's need for

military technology to keep up with the arms race in the Taiwan

Straits and Southeast Asia (which owe much to China's

belligerence and prior arms purchases from Russia) will lead

Beijing to the Russian defense industry. And these contracts

"could become not only a way for our hapless military-industrial

complex to preserve jobs and earn money, but also the start of a

long-range strategic partnership and a new balance of forces in

Asia that would favor Russia."15
4

Arms sales then become the royal road to a revival of

Russian power, prestige, and position at a global level against

the United States which is still seen as the main enemy. Since

the defense industry is unreformed in structure and composition

and regards the United States as its main rival, its leaders and

spokesmen have been in the forefront of the anti-American

orientation in Russian policy.16 Thus, to the degree that factions

sharing that outlook dominate Russo-Chinese arms sales and the

bilateral relationship, Western and pro-Western powers and

domestic reformers face a hostile coalition, if not bloc, in

Asia.

Another reason for pushing arms sales, and one that connects

defense industrialists with military men, is that keeping these

production lines "hot" regardless of a true account of economic

costs and gains helps reduce unit and developmental costs for

existing and new weapons. Then the ensuing economies of scale

benefit the military buyers of these systems who can obtain more

weapons for the same or maybe reduced costs.17 Foreign sales can

also help recover costs for the next generation systems when one

line goes out of domestic production.18 And since Russian industry

is being subsidized de facto, exports seemingly provide the

exporter, whether it is the defense industry or the Ministry of

Defense, with large profits.19

The Nature and Effects of Russian Policy.

Still, Russian arms sales policy will likely remain

strategically incoherent. Arms sales regulations are not

legislated public law but rather presidential decrees subject to

revision or noncompliance provided one has sufficient clout. More

generally, Kevin O'Prey writes that state policy, with special

reference to arms sales, is characterized by a chaos that makes

claims of gridlock in the United States look like paradise. On

bad days, the government can issue five decrees which contradict

each other and, in any case, are not obeyed. Presidential aides

occasionally introduce decrees in Yeltsin's name without his

knowledge, or in spite of his opposition to them. Regional

governments frequently ignore these decrees. Consultation among

regularly constituted organizations on major defense policies

does not occur. This helps explain how Russia stumbled into

Chechnya while the Council of the Ministry of Defense was not

told about the planned invasion. Defense conversion issues and

arms sales are no different, and since 1992 every state

organization with some responsibility or turf in this area has

competed with every other agency to do the same thing.20

The government does not effectively control either arms

sales policy in general or relations with China in particular. In

July 1996, Sukhoi Design Bureau admitted that the deal
5

transferring licenses to China for its own production of the SU27 fighter that markedly upgrades the strategic capability of

China vis-a-vis all its neighbors was negotiated by Mikhail

Simonov, its General Director, on his own, without official

authorization or knowledge.21 Simonov did so to gain funding for

the future SU-37 fighter which otherwise could not have been

produced because there is no money for it. Moscow had to accept

this deal lest it anger China and undermine a crucial pillar of

its Asian policy and overall world policy.

But Moscow pays high costs for such acquiescence and loss of

control over its defense industrial sector. Aviation sector

experts pointed out that Sukhoi's action deprives Russian plants

of the opportunity to manufacture and export fighter planes that

could bring in approximately $1.2 billion. Instead, domestic

production in China will allow Beijing to repudiate its previous

plans to buy at least 50 SU-27s from Russia over the next 5

years. These experts also observe that China can now make slight

variations in the SU-27, set up serial production under a Chinese

plane, and violate the license's stipulations on the number of

planes that Beijing can manufacture annually (between 50-200

according to the contract). China can then turn around and

compete with Russia for fighter exports in Asia and elsewhere.

With this license China also is acquiring specialized

technologies for manufacturing titanium structural elements. Even

if Russia refuses to supply component parts, China can then

manufacture the SU-27 on its own. Finally, aviation sector

experts note that the SU-27 is the "base model" for all of

Russia's fourth-generation fighters which have lost their place

in the world market, thanks to this deal. While a "fifthgeneration" fighter would be the ideal solution, militaryindustrial experts doubt that Simonov and Sukhoi will put one

into serial production in the next 5 years since not even a

prototype has been tested yet.22 These technological and

production issues do not include, of course, the fact that

China's overall military capability against all enemies, real or

potential, has also greatly increased, severely adding to the

burden regional Russian military forces might face.

Nor was this an isolated case. An excellent example of the

dangers inherent in the loose control over Russia's weapons

program appeared in 1995 when China purchased upper-stage rocket

engines. This sale violates the Missile Technology Control Regime

(MTCR) that Russia had pledged to accept. Yet these purchases did

not go through the official channels. Instead the engines were

sold directly by the Ministry of Defense without notifying the

company that produces them, NGO Energiamash, and despite a

requirement that the state license the sale.23

Meanwhile, not only is Russia transferring conventional and
6

nuclear weapons and know-how to China and providing weapons that

can be used against it, Russia is also selling major new weapons

systems like the SU-27 and SU-30 Fighters to states which are

most likely to be China's main military rivals: India, Malaysia,

South Korea. Russia also is offering weapons to other Southeast

Asian states like Vietnam and Singapore, and hints at the

availability of SU-27 fighters to Japan.24 And some key Russian

elites still want to sell or transfer weapons to North Korea,

supposedly to regain leverage and influence in Pyongyang.25

The facts that such intentions arouse disquiet across Asia

and have caused a notable cooling of Moscow's once-promising ties

with Seoul illustrate the lack of strategic coherence to this

policy or, more broadly, to Russia's Asian policy. Russia's Asian

policy is excessively influenced by this arms sales policy that

incessantly pushes to sell weapons indiscriminately. To the

degree that partisans of a vigorous and unrestricted arms sales

program triumph, their victory represents the primacy of narrow,

sectoral, and bloc or factional interests over any concept of

national interest. In a real sense, Russian security policy in

Asia will then have been privatized. That is, it will be a policy

conducted mainly for the benefit of selected private interests.26

This trend is already visible, and could compromise Russia's and

other Asian states' security, facilitate an Asian arms race, and

give some of the most unreformed sectors of the Russian elite a

strong position in state policy from which they can obstruct

further reform.27

Accordingly, Russian policy is distinguished by the absence

of coherence and consistency due to the struggle among the

"multipolar" interests and opinions at the policymaking level and

the government's utter disorganization.28 In this struggle,

powerful factions in and around Russia's government strive to

monopolize as much as possible of the policy processes that

concern them. In highly technical issues like arms sales, it is

easier for these interests to gain their goals.29 Thus,

In the area of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] (and

especially BM-ballistic missiles) proliferation, it is

the narrow interest groups representing producers of

some types of exportable hardware and materials that

are especially eager to obtain "absolute" authority in

laying out and implementing policies benefiting

primarily their own positions. As traditionally was

done in the former Soviet Union, additional practical

means of achieving such a monopoly position are setting

up a heavy veil of secrecy and acting under the guise

of "overriding national security expediency."30

The defense industry and its new eponymous ministry are one of

those groups in contention with other interested parties. This
7

group's economic needs intersect with opportunities for

corruption, Russia's strategic and economic interest in

friendship with China, and China's continuing interests in

friendship with Russia and cheap weapons.

The Chinese Arms Transfer Offensive.

China seeks weapons as well as production technologies and

know-how, i.e., offsets, and the SU-27 incident illustrates how

Beijing prevailed in obtaining those goals despite Russian

officials' earlier misgivings.31 This episode also suggests that,

Russian protestations to the contrary, China, if it exerts

itself, can get what it wants and that it, not Russia, is driving

this relationship. Russian analysts observe that their

authorities seem "largely unprepared" to recognize or confront

proliferation threats from Moscow's closest neighbors, despite

the facts that suggest such threats are real. Indeed, they seem

to welcome China's need to compete with Taiwan in modernizing and

upgrading armaments because this means more orders for them

regardless of the consequences.32 This also may be due to the fact

that sectoral and private (i.e., easily corruptible) interests

exercise undue influence over policy. For example, China

apparently acts clandestinely, deals wherever possible directly

with military producers rather than Moscow, and squeezes every

available technology out of its partners by reported sharp

practices. Thus China's Norinco company was able to assimilate

series production of the Russian Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV),

the BMP-1 in 1994-96 without an agreement to purchase the license

and is now supplying it to the Middle East and North Africa.

Furthermore, Russian and Taiwanese sources report that at 

least 40 percent of the revenue from Chinese purchases does not

go to Russian manufacturers (where it does go would be a most

interesting question). Nor is cash the only payment. The St.

Petersburg shipyard that supplied Kilo-class submarines to China

received thousands of cigarette lighters, greatly marked up in

price as compensation.33 Presumably this type of compensation also

includes bribery in the form of exorbitant commissions. For

instance Rosvooruzhenie, the state arms sales firm, gets a 6

percent commission on sales to China and the overseas Chinese

firms and banks, that are middlemen, also make a lot on these

transactions. But Russia never sees this money.

The narrow unstrategic approach toward Chinese purchases is

also visible in regard to the deal licensing Chinese production

of the SU-27. Although Russia will receive royalties for the SU27, China will (as noted above) be able to sell it everywhere to

undercut Russian producers. In addition, it was already clear in

1992 and 1993 that China was buying the services of Russian

defense scientists and that Moscow could not control or regulate
8

that program.34 China also has allegedly set up E-mail links with

Russian military, scientific, and nuclear installations that

third parties cannot easily monitor and received computer

technology for simulating nuclear tests. More recently Russian

media reported that China's Military-Technical Cooperation

Coordinating Center invites Russian weapons designers and other

specialists to China for preliminary talks. At these talks the

Russian scientists give mainly "secret" lectures on Russian

defense exports. Chinese sources report that the information they

receive saves from 15-20 years of R&D and hundreds of millions of

dollars.35

Meanwhile, the arms sales program continues to grow.

Recently Phazotron, a Russian firm, signed contracts with China

to provide 150-200 improved Zhuk radars mainly in support of

China's new F-8II fighter, but also to equip the new Chengdu J-10

(J-9) fighter, a classified program.36 These radars have six times

the data and signal processing power of the basic variant and

greater detection range than the current 80KM. They can track

while scanning on 24 targets, display up to 8 of them, and

simultaneously provide fire-control solutions for 2-4 of them.37

Phazotron also seeks Chinese contracts for its Super Komar radar

(an upgraded Kopyo model) for the Chinese/Pakistani FC-1 Fighter

program.38

Likewise, there have been recent charges of Russian sales of

SS-18 technology to China which would violate the MTCR. Russia

denied these charges.39 The issue of missile sales to China is

perhaps the most disquieting aspect of Russian policy. The 1995

sale of rocket engines has been mentioned above. But apparently

this sale, too, is not unique. There are also unconfirmed reports

from 1995 that Russia allowed China to recruit an entire cruise

missile research and development team. According to Chong-Pin Lin

of the American Enterprise Institute, in August 1995 China

recruited this team shortly after the Soviet collapse. Initial

results and test firings should soon be evident. He also charged

that China's satellites could complement the missiles by

providing sufficient topographical information for inputting as

target data into the cruise missile's memory. Other Taiwanese

analysts make similar arguments concerning the production of

Russian-type cruise missiles. Cruise missiles in China's hands

dramatically increase the precision of its missile targeting,

and, since their range exceeds 2,000 KM, they could vastly expand

the envelope of China's targeting capability.40 Other reports

suggest that China may obtain Soviet/Russian research on airborne

cruise missiles (AS-19) or take a page from the U.S. Harpoon

anti-ship cruise missiles and revamp its C-802 anti-ship missiles

to ground-targeted cruise missiles.

China also wants the IFV, BMP-3 and a license for its

production. Reportedly, Beijing is also going to buy six
9

battalions of S-300 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles.

Russian elites believe that if China increases its purchases by

30-35 percent, that will mean a 50 percent rise in Russian

defense production.41 All these developments, added to the

pervasive deception and concealment of Chinese military thinking,

make it very difficult to track with certainty what arms and

technologies China receives from Russian channels. Thus, while we

have some knowledge of Russian arms transfers to China, it is

probably an opaque picture at best. Meanwhile, Russia already has

often lost control over private firms' arms sales activities even

as it expands its program of sales to China.

Russian defense ministry officials working on Sino-Russian

relations told Japan's Sankei Shimbun that besides the Chinese

license for the SU-27, the two sides have contracted for China to

keep buying submarines and air defense missile systems while

studying joint development of the Super-7 attack fighter. Total

arms exports to China will reach $5.2 billion, a figure which, if

true, would double all Russian arms exports world-wide for 1995.

Later reports suggest that China also is interested in T-80U

(state- of-the-art) Russian tanks that are unavailable to Russian

forces), the SA-15 Gauntlet surface-to-air missile, and the 256M

Tunguska-combined gun/SAM system.42 China is also building up its

naval and air forces with Russian purchases. To date, it has

purchased 72 Su-27s, one diesel-powered Kilo-class submarine, 4

S-300 air defense missiles, and concluded the agreement to

produce SU-27s in China under license to Russia.43 China has also

contracted for or received four more Kilos (two of the somewhat

inferior export models and two of the advanced state-of-the-art

models) and S-300 theater missile defense systems by 1998, is

considering joint development of the Super 7, and negotiating to

purchase the MiG-31 interceptor and multiple launch missile

systems.44 Furthermore,

China is not only eager to introduce 12 "Xia" class

(nuclear powered) submarines, far more than expected,

but is also aiming at obtaining minelaying boats for

sea blockade purposes, landing craft, and missile

cruisers. The Chinese Air Force also plans to purchase

equipment such as air tankers, airborne warning and

control aircraft, supersonic attack bombers, and sky

trucks.45

Russian Security Concerns.

It should be noted that much of this "wish list" exactly

matches the defects in the PLAN and PLAAF (China's navy and air

force) that Western analysts cite as major obstacles to takeovers

of the Spratly Islands and Taiwan.46 These Russian officials also

conceded that China's military expansion could threaten Russia,
10

therefore they claimed that export is limited mostly to defensive

weapons that are not state-of-the-art in order to maintain at

least a 10-year gap between Chinese and Russian military modernization.47 Nevertheless, from this list of Chinese future programs

and purchases one cannot distinguish between defensive or

offensive systems and operations. Nor do past Russian sales or

the previous analysis give one confidence that Russian officials

can maintain across-the-board technological superiority vis-a-vis

China. The pressures at home for sales are too great both at the

central level and regionally, particularly in the Far Eastern

provinces of Russia. Moreover, the defense industry's determined

resistance to reform means that it can survive only by subsidies

and exports. China's purchases not only reinvigorate this

reactionary sector of the Russian economy, they force it to

depend on Beijing for its survival. To the extent that the

defense industrial lobby then predominates in policy, Beijing

reaps inordinate benefits from that lobby's need for survival and

for the China market, and gains lasting leverage on Russian

defense policy.

This relationship is particularly visible in the Russian Far

East, a traditionally overmilitarized sector of the economy. As

of 1993, although 40 percent of the labor force worked in

military industry, it accounted for only 12 percent of industrial

production. Military firms padded their payrolls with huge

numbers of redundant workers while cutting production. This

caused a staggering and insupportable burden on the depressed

regional economy, confronting the defense industry with the

choices of massive layoffs, or diversifying production, or

finding new markets for arms production.48

As defense conversion was not progressing rapidly, the

options increasingly were the two most destabilizing;

layoffs or expanded military production, primarily for

export across the Ussuri into Manchuria, which would

ultimately only intensify Russian vulnerabilities to

Asian neighbors. By the mid 1990s, this arms export

option seemed to be the line of least resistance and

greatest profit that the region was pursuing, despite

its potentially counterproductive longer-term

consequences. This was evidenced by Russian transfers

of Pacific fleet submarines to North Korea, diverse

arms components to China and even two old Kiev-class

aircraft carriers to South Korea.49

These trends deeply disturb some Russian military men, but 

the government apparently overlooks their worries even though

Russian conventional theater exercises and drills are carried out

against an enemy which is clearly China. Likewise, the

construction of enriched uranium plants for China or the transfer

of submarines with advanced quieting technologies and designs,
11

and of high-performance aircraft for barter and cash inevitably

alters the regional, if not overall, balance in East Asia against

Russia and for China. Yet this, too, seems to be overlooked or

dismissed as grounds for concern. Indeed, even the fact, reported

in the Russian press, that Chinese and Russian sources both say

that by 2010 the PRC's tank and missile troops, navy, and air

force will have been modernized in line with world standards does

not concern defense industrialists. It just means more sales.50

Hundreds of Chinese technicians work at Russian defense

plants and many Russian plants are working exclusively for the

Chinese market or Chinese owners.51 One report also noticed that

Chinese delegations of highly skilled specialists wander around

Russian defense plants and negotiate contracts. They are shown

"practically everything" so that these factories might win

orders. While Russia sends groups of 2-3 to China, China sends 10

at a time, spies freely, bargains stubbornly, and orders very

little. Moreover, "it has even reached the point of our

specialists' development of models of military equipment adapted

to the production possibilities of the plants of the Chinese

military-industrial complex."52

This happened in 1994 in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod

where shipyards producing Varshavianka Kilo-class submarines have

no other work. One plant director complained that the Chinese

delegation touring the plant somehow obtained secret

specifications for the Russian Navy and demanded that China

obtain the same subs, after which the plant will be out of work.53

Since then Russia has sold four of these submarines to China and

further sales are likely, if only to keep the production line

going. This sale did not receive total approbation from the

Russian Navy, some of whose members fear what will happen when

China masters construction of virtually silent diesel submarines,

rearms them with cruise missiles and their own missile torpedoes,

or adapts them to a relatively small nuclear electrical power

source.54 But they lost this argument as well as that over the SU27s. Corruption and greed work with Russia's geopolitical

imperatives to ensure that military-technical cooperation will

continue and flourish for some time.

The Deepening Sino-Russian Relationship.

Russia's geopolitical motives for friendship with China are

clear. Russia needs a friendly China to avert threats across its

Asian frontiers where its military power is eroding daily.55

Russian Asia remains an economy of force theater that cannot be

adequately defended now or for a long time. Therefore, it is

threatened potentially by land from China and by sea from Japan

and the United States. Russia (especially its Far Eastern and

Siberian provinces) needs China's markets. It also needs arms
12

sales, peace along the borders with Central Asia that

historically have been an object of considerable rivalry, and

China's help to enter into the Asian economic-political order.

Most of all, Russia needs China to counter U.S. pressure.

Leading Russian analysts of Asia and Foreign Minister Yevgeny

Primakov concur that Russia must oppose U.S. unipolar hegemony

and obtain a state of equality with Washington in all things

despite Russia's visible inferiority in every aspect of power and

the suspicion of all its partners concerning Russian aims.56 As

Aleksei Bogaturov and Viktor Kremenyuk, prominent analysts of

Russian foreign policy at the U.S.A. Institute, recently wrote,

The greater Russia's irritation at the "geopolitical

pluralism" of the United States . . . the more rosy the

prospects of rapprochement with Beijing appears to the

Russian left-wing politicians . . . At any rate, the

possibility that Russia would deliberately distance

itself from the United States and prefer to expand

military-political relations and other contacts with

the PRC . . . appears to be a possible Russian foreign

policy concept in the next few years.57

Perhaps they knew how prescient they were. Russia's June

1996 national security concept propounds a policy of equidistance

from all major powers as Russia concentrates on the CIS, a policy

that openly brings China closer to it and distances the United

States further from Russia.58 This hierarchy of objectives is

overtly reflected in the goals listed in President Yeltsin's

accompanying letter.59 This means friendship and more with China

against U.S. interests. Vladimir Miasnikov, Deputy Director of

the Institute of the Far East, writes that, "it is a vital

security interest of Russia to establish itself as a preeminent

power on the Pacific rim, both for its own value, and as a

strategic alternative to exclusive reliance upon integration into

Western economic and security structures."60

In a major foreign policy speech on June 25, 1996, Foreign

Minister Yevgeny Primakov openly stated that Russia must have

friendship with China in its efforts to counter the impressions

that there were winners and losers of the Cold War and that a

unipolar world order should be created against Russia's

interests.61 On the very same day, Yevgeny Afanasyev, head of the

First Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after

conversations with his opposite numbers from China's Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, announced that Russian and Chinese interests on

all Asian security issues are virtually identical.62 This is a

rather shocking announcement because the communique of Yeltsin's

April 1996 visit to China was silent on Korea, suggesting

disagreement on important issues. Yet, it would appear that

Russia now identifies with China's policies rather than with its
13

own previous policies. This should cause great concern in Tokyo,

Seoul, Washington, ASEAN's capitals, Taipei, and New Delhi.

Signs of this concordance of interests have already appeared. At

the April 1996 Sino-Russian summit in Beijing, Russia signed the

communique condemning "hegemony," i.e., U.S. primacy in Asia.

Both sides made and continue to make numerous statements that

they will use their entente to restrict U.S. power and influence

in Asia and globally.63 Primakov and Yeltsin also have made many

recent statements suggesting that they see U.S. policies as

threatening Russia, either through NATO expansion or through

foreign economic pressure.

Equally worrisome is the fact that Russia has associated

itself with Chinese initiatives for Asia or is trying to peddle

infeasible schemes for collective and joint security there. In

1995, then Defense Minister Pavel Grachev proposed a joint SinoRussian condominium for policing Asia.64 Russian diplomats claim

the 1996 border treaty that delimits China's borders with Russia

and three Central Asian states—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and

Tajikistan—and sets up confidence and security building measures

(CSBMs), is a "non-aggression pact" or tantamount to it, and

indeed Russia signed a non-aggression pact with China in 1994 and

has added nuclear non-targeting conditions to it.65

Likewise, Russia and China offered a joint proposal for

Southeast Asian security immediately after the summit in April

1996. This is a region where Russia has shown virtually no

interest and thus is following China's lead.66 This plan

apparently conforms solely to China's security desiderata and

tries to "swindle" ASEAN into accepting a one China policy,

rather than dealing with ASEAN's concerns.67 It also is clear from

earlier high-level visits that Russia needs China to help it join

major Asian organizations like the Asian-Pacific Economic

Cooperation (APEC).68 Finally, the communique and reports from the

Beijing summit showed a continuing effort to create a joint

position on major issues of Asian-Pacific security.69 This effort

to create a joint position now appears to be bearing fruit.

As a sign of the times, Russian media increasingly now

proclaim the alliance of the two states. After the April 1996

summit, a Russian government source said that,

Russia and China are able to create a powerful economic

alliance in Asia which will determine the climate on

the market of the Asian-Pacific region in the future. .

. . the political system favors creation of this

alliance and Russia's growing role on the Chinese

market in machinery and military-technical production.70

Vladimir Kuznechevskii of Rossisskaya Gazeta went still further.

He wrote that,
14

Who might support China in her legitimate desires to

reunify Taiwan with the mainland? Who is objectively

interested in supporting China's economic expansion in

Southeast Asia? Nobody except Russia! . . . A "purely

military alliance" is unlikely and that "neither China

nor Russia need it" . . . too close a rapprochement

causes strong contradictions. But objective

circumstances nevertheless literally push Moscow and

Beijing toward a closer mutually advantageous

cooperation not only in the economic field, but in the

military one as well.71

Yet, paradoxically, many Russian experts not currently in

favor, like Miasnikov, claim that Russia's leaders do not fully

understand that China is a threat to Russia, and that Beijing is

using Moscow to gain leverage and a privileged position to deal

with Washington as Asia's arbiter.72 These concerns are wellfounded. Recent Sino-Russian actions could undo the Nixon

Administration's great strategic achievement: its opening to

China, and our ensuing ability to keep China and Russia further

away from each other than they each were from us.73

Russia, in the April 1996 communique after Yeltsin's summit

in Beijing, decisively adopted China's position that regards U.S.

power and the specter of a unipolar and unbalanced global order

as a threat. More recently, in November 1996, Primakov stated

that Sino-Russian views on the formation of a multipolar world

which is organized by the democratic relationship of the many

poles, two of which are Russia and China, are similar. China

increasingly believes the United States is orchestrating an

economic-political and military effort to practice a

"containment" policy towards China and to undermine its political

order and integrity through economic, non-proliferation,

Taiwanese, and human rights issues.74 Russia's inclination to this

view cannot be comforting regardless of whether the question is

arms sales, Asian security policy, or other global issues. Yet no

sooner did Russia commit itself, than did China make very overt

welcoming gestures towards high-level American visitors and

engage in positive discussions with National Security Advisor

Anthony Lake about how China might help "write the rules" of

future Asian security agendas.75 Of course, if China, the United

States, and Japan rewrite the existing rules, Russia will

probably be left out of this effort as it is being left out of so

much of Asia.

Therefore, it seems that Russia has given up the effort to

devise a coherent Asian policy based on a mature awareness of

what Russia's true interests and capabilities are. Instead Moscow

is pursuing a global policy when it has no means to do so, has

subcontracted much of its strategy to the arms sellers, and is
15

forced to follow in Beijing's wake in Asia. Meanwhile China

harnesses Russia to the pursuit of its Asian objectives which are

not necessarily Russia's goals.

Russian policymakers also appear utterly oblivious to

threats based on transferring weapons to China. Apparently they

believe that Russia is immune to such threats or its peaceful

interests give it a standing as a power that "does not deserve to

be hurt." Others assume that by practicing such policies Russia

will either gain leverage over China and a constant and friendly

market, or think that Russia's technological superiority will

enable Russia to offset and repel threats. They also may claim

that by not singling out states like China as potential threats,

they have launched a process that will please, pacify, and

enmesh China and other potentially hostile states in friendly

relations even against their natural inclinations.76 Accordingly,

it seems that key elites do not view these relations as dangerous

for Russia or other states, yet Russia is providing its main

potential enemy with sophisticated weapons and technologies.

Apparently, Russia operates with a very faulty strategic compass,

and, on balance, is the demandeur in this relationship and needs

China much more than China needs it.

Indeed, there is considerable evidence to suggest that it is

Russia which is trying to push the relationship further toward

first strategic partnership, and, more recently, actual alliance.

In early 1994, then Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev announced

that Russia wanted the relationship with China to rise to the

level of strategic partnership. But Izvestiya reported that, "The

PRC leaders are in no hurry to take up the formula of strategic

partnership. The head of China's foreign policy department

prefers to speak in more cautious terms."77 Kozyrev and Prime

Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin then stated that their main

interests lay in getting Chinese support for Russia to join APEC

and China's support for Russia in Central Asia where both sides

shared a common viewpoint on threats to stability. Only late in

1994 did this Chinese support for APEC emerge, but it was clear

that Russia was already trying to get China to support its

ambitions to cut a great power role in Asia.78

More recently Chinese Kremlinologists informed American

analysts that in 1996 Yeltsin himself, speaking from his airplane

on route to Shanghai, insisted that the communique be changed to

state that there was a strategic partnership relationship between

Moscow and Beijing.79 Since then the pace and intensity of

discussions and of official Russian pressure to upgrade the

relationship have evidently accelerated. For example, on December

25, 1996, Defense Minister Igor Rodionov gave a major speech to

the CIS member states where he expressly cited China's military

buildup as one of many military threats to Russia that should

lead these states to form an alliance. The Ministry of Foreign
16

Affairs hastened to minimize this statement and soon after the

government forced Rodionov to send a letter of self-criticism to

all military commanders reminding them that China was Russia's

strategic partner, that the multilateral troop reductions along

the borders of China, Russia, and Central Asian states would not

harm Russian security, that troops in the Far East were being

maintained at current levels and that commanders could not speak

out on China unless the MFA cleared them to do so.80 At the same

time Yeltsin also admonished the outspoken Governor of the Far

Eastern Province, Evgenii Nazdratenko, to harmonize all future

statements on China, which he has bitterly attacked over borders

and immigration,with the MFA.81

Continuing in this vein, Russian journalists now write that

Russia and China are each other's strategic rear.82 Die Welt,

reporting from Berlin, cited diplomatic observers in Moscow who

said that a Sino-Russian military alliance, "hitherto

inconceivable, can no longer be ruled out" and that "changes of a

geopolitical nature" are imminent.83 While other reports say that

Primakov and Russian Ambassador to China, Igor Rogachev, have

ruled out that idea, they also say that it has been and is being

discussed. Therefore we can reasonably anticipate that the

strategic partnership document to be issued after the next summit

when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visits Moscow in April 1997

will undoubtedly intensify the nature of both states' strategic

cooperation.84

Accompanying this intensification of the strategic political

relationship are new military arrangements and arms deals that

reflect China's continuing ascendancy in this relationship. Thus

the talks on mutual force reductions came to an apparent

agreement at the end of 1996. Whereas Grachev had opposed pulling

both sides' forces back from the border 100 km because this

threatened Russia's installations and settlements in the area,

now Russia has agreed to an asymmetrical withdrawal of forces

within the 100 km zone even though its forces will be subject to

the greatest cuts, and China's forces had already largely been

moved back to 300 km from the border.85 It is very likely that the

economic crisis of Russia's armed forces played no small role in

this decision, but it is another indicator of Russia retreating

from its position in the face of stubborn Chinese bargaining.

The same pattern is observable regarding new arms sales. In

August-September 1996 Russian sources listed weapons that China

was interested in acquiring, but denied that the T-80U tanks had

been transferred or that ICBM and Sovremenny-class destroyers

were on offer.86 However, by early 1997 Russia had sold two of

these destroyers to China along with SS-N-22 Sunburn anti-ship

missiles. The Sunburn is designed to counter U.S. Aegis-equipped

ships, crippling our ability to monitor the aerial environment in

maritime theaters. It can also be used to take out other surface
17

ships. Since China can also reverse engineer them, it gains a

formidable weapon, perhaps the most feared of Russia's many antiship missiles. And this discussion does not begin to talk of the

Soveremenny's heavy complement of anti-air missiles.87 Here we

have prima facie evidence of Russian support for China's sea

denial strategy towards the United States and other major Pacific

powers (including Russia) which entails efforts to deny both

aerial and maritime superiority to the United States in the

Western Pacific and create a theater where China can move and act

freely and project power over greater distances than before.88

Nor does this sale and reports cited above exhaust what is

currently being negotiated or actually sold to China as part of

an 8-10 billion dollar multi-year deal. New reports cite Chinese

interest in S-300 anti-air missiles, further acquisitions of 25-

55 SU-27 aircraft, a license for the production of the modern

BMP-3 IFV, 200 of the BMP-3, and the SU-27K or SU-33 maritime

fighter for deployment upon aircraft carriers. China also is

interested in producing upgrades of the SU-27 that could include

the new SU-37, the next generation of Russian fighters and the

SU-32FN twin after-burning engine fighter that can perform

antisubmarine, anti-surface, or anti-ground attack missions.89

All of the foregoing strongly points to China's ability to

get what it wants from the bilateral relationship if it exerts

itself sufficiently over time. These trends also underscore

Russia's increasing dependence on China for arms purchases and

political support, even at the expense of prudent defense policy

and planning. As long as this line of policy persists it is very

clear that Russia will continue to need China more than China

needs it.

Certainly this appears to be Beijing's view. Chinese media

are not above lecturing Russia on how to trade and do business

with it.90 Li Jingjie, Deputy Director of the Chinese Academy of

Sciences' Institute of East Europe, Russia, and Central Asia,

observes that Russia is a declining power in Asia which cannot

secure its interests alone nor have much current impact on

outstanding security issues. Furthermore,

Confrontation with China would endanger many of

Russia's most pressing vital interests, including the

need to create favorable international conditions for

Russia's domestic reforms, and above all, to ensure a

peaceful and stable periphery. . . . Moscow's current

leaders surely know that only by maintaining good

relations with China can the new Russia secure a smooth

path to a bright future in Asia.91 (emphasis author)

That is not the language of fraternal alliance or friendship but
18

of a cold calculation of power relationships.

Chinese Perspectives.

China benefits from its Russian relationship in many ways.

It no longer must worry about a Russian military threat and can

reorient its best armed forces to other theaters. China now has

many points of leverage throughout the Russian economy, with

federal and local governments, among civilian and military

bureaucracies, and with the defense industry. China also gains a

market for some of its lower quality goods and a source of cheap

consumer goods. It shares with Moscow (and New Delhi) a common

desire to restrict Muslim nationalism in Xinjiang and Central

Asia. And of course, it gains a stable, cheap supply of quality

weaponry. While this last benefit may be the most tangible

geopolitical fruit of this new relationship, it also cements an

anti-American orientation which can only grow more truculent and

intense if China collides with U.S. interests in East Asia. Yet

paradoxically, China's amity with Russia enhances its standing

vis-a-vis the United States by confronting Washington with the

prospect of anti-American Sino-Russian cooperation. Thus, freed

of concern about Russia, Beijing, in its own view, can approach

the United States from a stronger position and oblige it to

improve ties to China. Thus the past history of these states'

triangular relationship repeats itself. When China can rely on

cooperation with Moscow or Washington, it then is free to

approach the other to secure a place as the balancer between them

or as a favored interlocutor.

Much of this list of objectives emerges from an alleged

Chinese Foreign Ministry analytical report on the 1996 Russian

presidential elections. It alleges that precisely because foreign

powers (i.e., the United States, also known as the "hegemonists")

are challenging China's integrity by raising human rights issues

in Tibet, deploying their economic and technological superiority,

and raising the Taiwan issue, friendship and cooperation with

Russia is in China's interest. Such relations have great positive

significance for establishing a fairer, more equal international

order. Russian stability is, therefore, important in countering

U.S. hegemonic drives and to check the expansion of Japanese

militarism. The report forecast that a Yeltsin loss would lead to

great instability, if not civil war, as in Chechnya. And if civil

war or a collapse of central authority occurred in Siberia, it

would affect Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. Thus the confidencebuilding measures and five power border treaty that China signed

with Russia, Kazakstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan in April 1996

stand in sharp contrast to the renewed U.S.-Japan Joint

Declaration that seeks, in the Chinese view, to erect a newly

militarized and anti-Chinese structure in Asia.92 As this report

suggests, the world, seen from Beijing, looks rather threatening,
19

especially as every other Asian state is building up the quality

of its military forces: especially naval, air, air defense and

C3I forces.93

Beijing also benefits from Russian and other Western

purchases in other ways. Russian weapons have filled the void

prompted by the termination of Western arms transfer programs to

Beijing after the Tienanmen Square massacres of 1989. Indeed,

Beijing reportedly was appealing to Moscow for weapons within

days of that event.94 China also can then reverse engineer the

weapons or obtain licenses, as in the SU-27, and remarket its own

version of the system at a cheaper price, eventually driving the

Russians out of the market. As China's economic position improves

and Western sellers are edging back to sales to China, and the

world market is now a buyer's market where China is able to

obtain technological compensations apart from the actual weapons,

it makes sense to buy arms, especially from Russia where the

producers are desperate, prices are cheap, and Chinese

negotiators operate on a very restricted financial base where

they can only make limited purchases of systems. As a result,

China has succeeded in getting many weapons and technologies and

has negotiated deals involving a large amount of non-cash

compensation, i.e., barter, to Russia.95 Since Russia is

determined to monopolize trade in Russian weapons to China and

crowd out competitors like Israel from upgrading older systems as

well as selling newer ones, but cannot dictate terms to China, a

symbiotic relationship has taken root and is growing steadily.96

Chinese policies are based on an understanding of its own

needs and those of the world arms market, and seem to be more

realistic than the utopian and self-serving views of Russian

weapons manufacturers and their spokesmen. China acknowledges the

downturn in the world arms market even as it notes the immediate

availability of much "excess material" globally.97 It also notes

that the end of ideological international conflict has opened up

the secret arms trade as the overt arms trade has declined.

Multipolarity in world politics has increased pressure on the UN

and states for more overt reporting of their arms sales and for

erecting new barriers to sales. This pressure is exercised to

achieve the goals of greater transparency and a new world order.

But these new trends in world politics force would-be state

entities and states to engage more briskly in smuggling and

covert trading to resist the pressures for conformity to the new

world order.98 Based on other reports, we may include China among

those seeking both overt and covert purchases of weapons and

technologies.

China also finds Russian weapons to be particularly

appealing because of the availability of barter deals, Russia's

aggressive promotion of weaponry to save its defense industry by

selling the kinds of high-tech systems that China is most
20

interested in obtaining: combat aircraft, dual use low-orbit

satellites, heavy weapons like main battle tanks and surface-toair missiles, and submarines.99 Chinese analysts also argue that

in view of the sharp increase in arms buying and spending in Asia

and the diversification of arms and other Asian states' emphasis

on acquiring offensive weapons, China cannot stand still.

Furthermore, the drive for high quality weaponry with the

latest technology which is first applied to weapons means that

military spending in Asia and world-wide will remain at high

levels. Since global weapons acquisitions are tending towards

capabilities that can be used for rapid response and high quality

systems that can intervene in local and regional conflicts, China

must follow suit. But it faces a quandary. As weapons become more

technologically sophisticated, they become more expensive. Their

improved performance entails greater costs. And China's arms

purchasers are on a tight leash since there is not a lot of money

to spend on weapons, while China, on principle, will avoid

excessive reliance, and thus dependence, on any one buyer.

Therefore, states engaged in overt buying of non-Russian arms

confront a situation where weapons unit costs are skyrocketing,

but Russia has all this surplus weaponry embodying "cash content"

which it must sell.100 Hence China can drive hard bargains with

Russia and covertly engage its plants.

China also knows that the future of the world arms trade

depends on cooperative ventures across state lines to make 

advances in the most salient technologies: aviation, spaceflight, and electronics. Producers will fight intensely among

themselves to sell to new markets or break into existing ones, a

situation that benefits buyers like China which can obtain high

technology and offsets more easily in this kind of marketplace.101

Conclusions.

Clearly Sino-Russian friendship is in the interests of both

states and Asia. But the trends in the relationship suggest a

tendency to form a bloc against the West notwithstanding both

sides' denial of plans for an alliance. The military trends are

equally disquieting. The Russian arms industry is out of control

and is not animated by any coherent sense of strategic

imperatives other than making money for defense producers, as

well as relieving them of the need to reform their antiquated and

destructive past structures and their relationship with the

state.

China has clearly exploited the chaos in this program,

Russian elites' and producers' corruptibility, as well as their

dependence on the Chinese market. Beijing strives to enhance its

own strategic position and obtain a relationship where Russia
21

follows China's agenda and needs it more than ever to enter Asia.

And in return for all this, China not only gains a permanent and

influential lobby inside the Russian government and armed forces,

it also pays no strategic price for its gains. There is no

discernible quid pro quo that Russia has extracted in return for

its unilateral worsening of its strategic position vis-a-vis

China.

At the same time Russian producers and the government want

to sell to everyone in Asia regardless of the consequences.

Russia has recently sold helicopters to Pakistan even as it

intensifies its sales to India, and even as the latter asks more

questions about the reasons for its sales to China.102 While there

may be some answers, like posing a common front against Islamic

self-assertion, this does not suffice as a strategic rationale

for these highly secretive substantial arms and technology

transfers. For example, China's NORINCO defense plant obtained

the ability for serial production of the BMP-1 without ever

formally obtaining a license, simply by technology transfer

through unofficial sources.103 We also do not know if there are

secret understandings concerning military actions involving China

and Russia in an allied or cooperative relationship, perhaps

involving Taiwan and the provision to China of Russian satellite

intelligence if and when Beijing acts against Taiwan.

We see only the tip of an iceberg when we look at these arms

sales to China. That iceberg is also made up of other Russian

sales to Asia and of whatever other understandings exist between

Moscow and Beijing. While publicly the U.S. Government welcomes

or does not criticize the close Sino-Russian relationship and

arms sales, in fact we do not know or seem to show much interest

in their full dimensions.104 Based on the conditions that govern 

Russian arms sales to China, this complacency seems misplaced. If

Asian, U.S., and other ships of state blunder along without

seeing this iceberg, when they meet it, the results could be

titanic.

ENDNOTES

1. A list of known Russian arms sales and transfers to China

appears in the Appendix.

2. The latest figures on the crash of the defense market

inside Russia can be found in Moscow, Interfax, in English, June

22, 1996, and Krasnaya Zvezda, in Russian, June 22, 1996, both in

Foreign Broadcast Information Service Central Eurasia, Military

Affairs (henceforth FBIS-UMA)-96-123-S, June 25, 1996, p. 63.

3. Moscow, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in Russian, May 14, 1996,

Foreign Broadcast Information Service Central Eurasia (henceforth

FBIS-SOV)-96-095, May 15, 1996, pp. 37-38, 52-53.
22

4. David Mussington, Understanding Contemporary

International Arms Transfers, Adelphi Papers, No. 291, 1994, p.

35.

5. Alexei Arbatov, Ed. and Commentary, "Russian Air Strategy

and Combat Aircraft Production: A Russian Air Force View,"

Randall Forsberg, ed., The Arms Production Dilemma: Contraction

and Restraint in the World Combat Aircraft Industry, Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press, 1994; CSIA Studies in International Security, No.

7, 1994, pp. 52-53.

6. Stephen Blank, Reform and Revolution in Russian Defense

Economics, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,

1995, pp. 23-26; James Clay Moltz, "The Russian Economic Crisis:

Implications for Asian-Pacific Policy and Security," Susan L.

Shirk and Christopher P. Twomey, eds., Power and Prosperity:

Economics and Security Linkages in Asia-Pacific, New Brunswick,

NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996, pp. 183-184.

7. Blank, pp. 23-26; Sergei Kortunov with a Commentary by

Alexei Arbatov, "Russian Aerospace Exports," in Forsberg, ed.,

pp. 91-93; Alexander Ozhegov, "The Conversion of the Russian

Military Aircraft Industry," in Forsberg, ed., pp. 84-88.

8. As the following sources indicate, the struggles from

1992-93 between producers, the ministries and the specialized

bodies in charge of conversion, arms sales, and the defense

industry continue unabated. Stephen Blank, Challenging the New

World Order: The Arms Transfer Policies of the Russian

Federation, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,

1993; Moscow, Interfax, in English, June 13, 1996, FBIS-UMA-96-

123-S, June 25, 1996, pp. 60-61; Moscow, Rabochaya Tribuna, in

Russian, June 28, 1996, FBIS-SOV-96-130, July 5, 1996, pp. 34-35;

Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, June 28, 1996, FBIS-SOV96-126, June 28, 1996, pp. 26-27.

9. Kortunov and Arbatov, pp. 100-105.

10. Ibid., pp. 108-109.

11. FBIS-SOV, July 5, 1996, p. 34.

12. Kevin P. O'Prey, A Farewell to Arms?: Russia's Struggles

With Defense Conversion, New York: The Twentieth Century Fund,

1995, pp. 2-3, 47-50, 57-59; Pyotr Yudin, "Lobov Will Protect

Industry From Russian Reform Drive," Defense News, July 8-14,

1996, pp. 1, 27.

13, Stephen Blank, "Russia and Iran in a New Middle East,"

Mediterranean Quarterly, Vol. III, No. 4, 1992, pp. 124-127.
23

14. Moscow, Krasnaya Zvezda, in Russian, July 2, 1996, FBISSOV- 96-129, July 3, 1996, p. 34.

15. "Taiwan Crisis and Russian-Chinese Ties," Current Digest

of the Post-Soviet Press, Vol. XLVIII, No. 11, April 10, 1996, p.

11.

16. Blank, Reform and the Revolution in Russian Defense

Economics, pp. 11-13.

17. Kevin O'Prey, The Arms Export Challenge: Cooperative

Approaches to Export Management and Defense Conversion,

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1995, p. 11.

18. Ibid., pp. 8-9.

19. Ibid.

20. O'Prey, A Farewell to Arms?, pp. 52-55.

21. Moscow, Kommersant-Daily, in Russian, July 18, 1996,

FBIS- SOV-96-140, July 19, 1996, pp. 20-22.

22. "Far East: China," Current Digest of the Post-Soviet

Press, Vol. XLVIII, No. 30, August 21, 1996, pp. 20-22. It should

be noted that among the articles in this section are some

alleging that Chinese military men still view Russia as the

enemy, a view which hardly jibes with official proclamations or

with the logic behind Russian arms sales.

23. Military Space, August 21, 1995, p. 1.

24. Moscow, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in Russian, May 13, 1996,

FBIS-SOV-96-094, May 14, 1996, p. 19; Bombay, The Times of India,

in English, April 11, 1996, Foreign Broadcast Information

Service, Near East and South Asia (henceforth FBIS-NES)-96-072,

April 12, 1996, pp. 66-67; Moscow, Interfax, in Russian, January

22, 1996, FBIS-SOV- 96-015, January 23, 1996, p. 27.

25. Seoul, Chungang Ilbo, in Korean, October 5, 1995,

Foreign Broadcast Information Service East Asia, (henceforth

FBIS-EAS)- 95-194, October 6, 1995, p. 62; Alexander Zhebin,

"Russia-DPRK Treaty: Is the Inherited Agreement Applicable,"

Northeast Asian Peace and Security Network, August 17, 1995.

26. Andrei Bouchkin, "Russia's Far Eastern Policy in the

1990s: Priorities and Prospects," Adeed Dawisha and Karen

Dawisha, eds., The Making of Foreign Policy in Russia and the New

States of Eurasia, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe & Co. Inc., 1995, pp.

70-73.
24

27. O'Prey, A Farewell to Arms, pp. 52-55.

28. Andrei Kortunov and Andrei Shumikhin, "Russia: Changing

Attitudes Toward Proliferation of Missiles and Weapons of Mass

Destruction," Comparative Strategy, Vol. XV, No. 2, April 1996,

p. 163.

29. Ibid., pp. 163-164.

30. Ibid., p. 164.

31. FBIS-SOV, July 19, 1996, pp. 20-22.

32. Kortunov and Shumikhin, pp. 164-166; Moscow, Rossiyskaya

Gazeta, in Russian, October 5, 1996, FBIS-SOV-96-196, October 5,

1996.

33. Ibid., Tai Ming Cheung, "Ties of Convenience: SinoSoviet/Russian Military Relations in the 1990s," Richard H. Yang,

ed., China's Military: The PLA in 1992-93, Taipei: Chinese

Council of Advanced Policy Studies, 1994, pp. 65-66; Nigel

Holloway, "Playing for Keeps," and Nayan Chanda, "Nervous

Neighbors," Far Eastern Economic Review, February 8, 1996, pp.

14-16.

34. Blank, Challenging the New World Order, pp. 57-58.

35. FBIS-SOV, October 5, 1996, and personal communication

from William Triplett and Northeast Asian Peace and Security

Network, July 31, 1996.

36. "Russian Radars for Chinese Fighters," Jane's

International Defense Review, January 1996, p. 10.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. Bill Gertz, "China's Arsenal Gets a Russian Boost,"

Washington Times, May 20, 1996, p. 1.

40. Hong Kong, Lien Ho Pao, in Chinese, July 30, 1995,

Foreign Broadcast Information Service, China (henceforth FBISCHI)-95-167, August 29, 1995, pp. 33-34.

41. Andrei Pinkov, "China Shops for More Russian Arms,"

International Defense Review, No. 9, September 1996, p. 9; Tokyo,

Sankei Shimbun, April 25, 1996, in Japanese, FBIS-CHI-96-083,

April 29, 1996, pp. 13-14.
25

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. For recent Western studies of China's navy and air force

see Kenneth W. Allen, Glenn Krummel, Jonathan D. Pollack, China's

Air Force Enters the 21st Century, Santa Monica, CA: RAND

Corporation, 1995; Christopher D. Yung, People's War at Sea:

Chinese Naval Power in the Twenty-First Century, Alexandria, VA:

Center for Naval Analyses, 1996; Richard A. Bitzinger and Bates

Gill, Gearing Up for High-Tech Warfare: Chinese and Taiwanese

Defense Modernization and Implications for Military Confrontation

Across the Taiwan Straits, 1995-2005, Washington, DC: Center for

Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 1996, pp. 7-14; David

Shambaugh, "China's Military: Real or Paper Tiger?," Washington 

Quarterly, Vol. XIX, No. 2, Winter 1996, pp. 19-36; Felix K.

Chang, "Beijing's Reach in the South China Sea," Orbis, Vol. XL,

No. 3, Summer 1996, pp. 353-374.

46. FBIS-CHI-96-083, April 29, 1996, pp. 13-14; and for

similar arguments, Moscow, Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye

(Supplement to Nezavisimaya Gazeta), March 25, 1996, FBIS-UMA-96-

104-S, May 29, 1996, pp. 29-32.

47. Kent E. Calder, Pacific Defense: Arms, Energy, and

America's Future in Asia, New York: William Morrow & Company,

Inc., 1996, pp. 38-39.

48. Ibid.

49. FBIS-SOV, October 5, 1996; Pavel Felgengauer, "Russkoe

Oruzhie dlia Kitaia i Natsional'naia Bezopasnost' Rossii," an

article from a forthcoming Russian/English book on the global

arms trade to be edited by Andrew Pierre of the Carnegie

Endowment. I am indebted to Mr. Sherman Garnett of the Endowment

for making it available to me. One should also see Open Media

Research Institute Daily Digest, July 26, 1995, for evidence of

high officials close to the defense industry favoring the

transfer of military technology to China.

50. Personal communication from Dr. Jacques Sapir of the

Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris.

51. Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, September 6,

1994, JPRS-UMA-94-041, October 12, 1994, p. 45.

52. Ibid., pp. 44-45.

53. Vladivostok, Vladivostok, in Russian, April 21, 1995,
26

JPRS- UMA-95-023, June 6, 1995, p. 22.

54. Li Jingjie, "China and Russia," in Robert D. Blackwill

and Sergei A. Karaganov, eds., Damage Limitation or Crisis?

Russia and the Outside World, Washington, DC: Brassey's (USA)

Inc., 1994; CSIA Studies in International Security, No. 5, pp.

248-250.

55. Moscow, Trud, in Russian, June 25, 1996, FBIS-SOV-96-

124, June 26, 1996, pp. 18-19.

56. Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Supplement), in Russian,

June 28, 1996, FBIS-SOV-96-128, July 2, 1996, p. 26.

57. Moscow, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in Russian, FBIS-SOV-96-116,

June 14, 1996; ITAR-TASS, in English, November 19, 1996.

58. Ibid.

59. Vladimir Miasnikov, "Russia and China," in Blackwill and

Karaganov, eds., p. 229.

60. FBIS-SOV, June 26, 1996, pp. 18-19.

61. Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, June 25, 1996, FBIS-SOV96-124, June 26, 1996, p. 23.

62. Beijing, Xinhua Domestic Service, in Chinese, April 25,

1996, FBIS-CHI-96-081, April 25, 1996, pp. 14-16; Moscow,

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, June 14, 1996, FBIS-SOV-96-116,

June 14, 1996, pp. 23-25. Primakov reiterated the identity of

Sino-Russian views on the building of the new international order

in Beijing in November 1996. ITAR-TASS, in English, November 19,

1996.

63. Moscow, Izvestiya, in Russian, May 24, 1995, FBIS-SOV95-100, May 24, 1995, pp. 6-7; "Beijing Rejects Grachev's

Alliance Proposals," Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press,

Vol. XLVII, No. 20, June 14, 1995, p. 22.

64. Xuewu Gu, "China's Policy Toward Russia," Aussenpolitik, English Edition, No. 3, 1993, p. 293; Beijing, Xinhua Domestic

Service, in Chinese, FBIS-CHI-94-018, January 27, 1994, pp. 10-

11.

65. Open Media Research Institute, Daily Digest, May 13,

1996.

66. "China Offers Accord to ‘Reassure' ASEAN," Jane's

Defence Weekly, June 19, 1996, p. 27.
27

67. "Text of Communique of Li Peng Visit Published," Moscow,

FBIS-SOV-95-125, June 29, 1995, p. 10.

68. FBIS-CHI, April 25, 1996, pp. 14-16.

69. Ibid.

70. Moscow, Interfax, in English, April 25, 1996, FBIS-SOV96-082, April 26, 1996, p. 17.

71. Vladimir Kuznechevskii, "CIS Countries and China in

Shanghai Made a Step to a Non-Military Alliance," Rossiyskaya

Gazeta, June 22, 1996, in Northeast Asian Peace and Security

Network, July 2, 1996.

72. Miasnikov, pp. 232-233.

73. Henry A. Kissinger, "Moscow and Beijing: A Declaration

of Independence," Washington Post, May 14, 1996, p. A15.

74. ITAR-TASS, in English, November 19, 1996; David

Shambaugh, "The Insecurity of Security: The PLA's Evolving

Doctrine and Threat Perceptions Towards 2000," Journal of

Northeast Asian Studies, Vol. XIII, No. 1, Spring, 1994, pp. 6-

10; Hong Kong, Cheng Ming, in Chinese, January 1994, FBIS-CHI-94-

016, January 25, 1994, pp. 4-6.

75. Keith B. Richburg, "U.S., China Optimistic After Talks

in Beijing," Washington Post, July 11, 1996, p. 21.

76. Kortunov and Shumikhin, p. 165.

77. Moscow, Izvestiya, in Russian, January 29, 1994, FBISSOV- 94-021, February 1, 1994, p. 8.

78. Moscow, Izvestiya, in Russian, February 1, 1994; Ibid.,

pp. 10-11.

79. As recounted by Sherman Garnett of the Carnegie

Endowment at the author's speech on the Russo-Chinese arms sales

and bilateral relationship, Washington, DC, January 28, 1997.

80. Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in Russian, December 26,

1996, FBIS-SOV-96-250, December 30, 1996; Moscow, Krasnaya

Zvezda, in Russian, December 26, 1996, FBIS-SOV-96-249, December

27, 1996; Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, Vol. XLVIII,

No. 52, January 22, 1997, pp. 17-19; The Monitor, January 20,

1997.

 81. Moscow, Interfax, in English, January 6, 1997, FBISSOV- 97-004, January 8, 1997.
28

82. Vsevolod Ovchinnikov, "World Without Leaders and Led,"

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, January 15, 1997, Internet translation,

Johnson's Russia List.

83. Berlin, Die Welt, in German, December 30, 1996, Foreign

Broadcast Information Service, Western Europe, (henceforth FBISWEU), 96-252, December 31, 1996.

84. Yojaya Sharma, "China-Russia: Military Alliance Appears

Unlikely at the Moment," Inter-Press Service, Hong Kong, December

19, 1996, from Johnson's Russia List.

85. Moscow, Interfax, in English, May 16, 1995; and ITARTASS, in English, May 16, 1995, FBIS-SOV-95-094, May 16, 1995,

pp. 8-9; Moscow, Izvestiya, in Russian, December 31, 1996, FBISSOV-96-252, December 31, 1996.

86. Pinkov, p. 9.

87. Bill Gertz, "Pentagon Says Russians Sold Destroyers to

China," Washington Times, January 10, 1997, p.1; "China Expands

Reach With Russian Destroyers," Jane's Defence Weekly, January

15, 1997, p. 6; Duncan Lennox, ed., Jane's Strategic Weapons

Systems, Couldson, Surrey, United Kingdom: Jane's Information

Group Ltd., September, 1996, Issue 22 for a description of the

SS-N-22.

88. For a description of Soviet naval theory until Gorshkov

which outlined the concept he then built on, i.e., a limited

maritime theater of strategic military operations (TVD in

Russian), see Robert Waring Herrick, Soviet Naval Theory and

Policy: Gorshkov's Inheritance, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute

Press, 1989.

89. Yojaya Sharma; Moscow, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in Russian,

October 5, 1996, FBIS-SOV-96-196, October 5, 1996; Barbara Opall,

"China Mulls Production of Carrier-Based Su-27," Defense News,

November 18-24, 1996, pp. 1, 34.

90. Beijing, Renmin Ribao, in Chinese, July 5, 1995, FBISCHI- 95-128, July 5, 1995, pp. 12-13.

91. Li Jingjie, pp. 248-250.

92. Hong Kong, Hsin Pao (Hong Kong Economic Journal), in

Chinese, June 28, 1996, FBIS-CHI-96-129, July 3, 1996, pp. 9-11.

93. Ibid.

94. Tai Ming Cheung, pp. 65-66.
29

95. Ibid.; Blank, Challenging the New World Order, pp. 59-

64.

96. The Monitor, July 18, 1996; Alexander Kotelkin,

"Russia's Promising Trade Prospects," Military Technology, June

1996, pp. 43-45, makes it clear that Russia will fight any

competitors.

97. Beijing, Shijie Jingji Yu Zhengzhi, in Chinese, No. 1,

February 1996, FBIS-CHI-96-123, June 25, 1996, pp. 2-7. This is a

long article on the status of the current global arms market and

trade.

98. Ibid.

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid.

101. Ibid.

102. FBIS-NES-96-072, April 12, 1996, pp. 66-67.

103. Miasnikov, pp. 231-232; Lin Jingjie, pp. 253-254; FBISSOV, October 5, 1996.

104. See Northeast Asian Peace and Security Network, July

18, 1996, for the remarks of Franklin Kramer, Assistant Secretary

of Defense for International Security Affairs on his recent trip

to China; and Sherman Garnett, "Russia's China Problem," Moscow

Times, November 20, 1996.
30

APPENDIX

RUSSIAN ARMS SALES TO CHINA THROUGH 19961

Since 1989 a substantial military relationship grew between

Russia and China for strategic and ideological reasons. This

appendix lists known transfers and sales of weapons to China

along with negotiations known to be in progress. China has bought

72 SU-27s, is training its pilots on them, and on other high

performance aircraft: the TU-204, the SU-22 Fighter, SU-24 and

SU-25 ground attack planes, MiG-29, MiG-31 fighters. China is

also training pilots and soldiers on Il-76 Transports,

"secondhand" AN-24 and Yak-40 passenger aircraft transports,

IFVs, electronics, and air defense systems. U.S. officials also

charged in 1993 that China is considering weapons of mass

destruction, missile guidance systems, and nuclear fusion

technologies.

Over time, the pace and direction of Chinese arms purchases

have become clearer and have caused greater alarm. China took

possession of 118 sets of missile systems before 1995, and bought

4 TU-26 long-range bombers and 70 improved T-72 tanks in 1993.

These purchases alone could substantially upgrade Chinese air

coverage of the area around Taiwan or the South China Sea. China

is also negotiating a MiG-31 fighter-interceptor production line

and manufacturing and technology rights including production

technology personnel. This transaction alone involves $2.5

billion. China has also recruited many Russian military

technicians for long-term service, with estimates running into

the thousands. These purchases, and those listed above, show

China's ambition to field an integrated land/sea air defense

system using Russian air and missile systems. If combined with

the carrier China has sought from Russia or Ukraine, this would

give China a formidable air and air defense system extending into

the waters around it. China is evidently creating an

infrastructure for a mobile, expanding, offensive air, air

defense system, and an integrated carrier battle group. This

coincides with Chinese military goals. It also is embarking on

joint ventures with Russia to take existing electro-optic defense

items and reconfigure the designs. This is only the first of what

is expected to be numerous future joint ventures.

 However, these are not all. No conventional system causes

as much concern as does China's efforts to obtain the long-range

TU-22M Backfire bomber that has a dual use 4000km unrefueled

range and is far more advanced than China's principal bomber, the

H-6. Though spare parts may become a problem, mere possession of

this system, let alone any production capability, will frighten

China's neighbors and lead to more arms buying across Asia. China
31

has also bought 4 Kilo-class submarines from Russia, is expected

to take possession of six other Kilo-class "Varshavianka"

submarines in the near future, and is building its own follow-on

known as the Song class (originally Wuhan-C). In addition, at

least some of the Russian subs are of an improved Kilo class that

uses advanced quieting technology. This fact highlights that in

many cases Russia is selling China (if not other states)

equipment of a class that it never exported before. Given the

weakness of control in Russia, it is possible that despite

efforts to safeguard production secrets, Russia will be unable to

prevent China from getting state-of-the-art systems. Since China

is expected to buy 12 more Kilo-class submarines in the future,

these subs could constitute the nucleus of a powerful Chinese

nuclear based navy using high-quality technology and able to

deter attack or threaten it or e.g., blockade Taiwan. Thus the

submarines and naval purchases, each in its own right, and

certainly as a totality threaten all of the areas around China,

the Spratlys, and Taiwan in particular.

Chinese purchases will likely grow as they are formalized in

a 1993 agreement with Russia that has already led to the

establishment of Russian service stations to maintain the SU-27

and S-300 SAM systems that Russia has sold to China. Both states

are collaborating on the RD33K turbo-fan engine until China can

produce it by itself. Russia is also considering selling the

Kh31PO anti-radar missile and China has already acquired 144

R27ER semi-active radar homing missiles, 96 R60 IR guided air-toair missiles, and an undisclosed number of R73 short-range IR

guided air-to-air missiles. Russia has also shipped 144 48 N6E

missiles that will probably defend Beijing and the Tianjing

region and 4 PMU-1 launching systems and is negotiating exporting

6-7 more advanced S300V systems. The scale of these purchases

suggests a long-range program and that reports of China

allocating $5 billion in 1994 for such purchases as probably

being a good estimate.

China's military doctrine anticipates local and limited wars

on its borders and stresses forces' mobility, lethality, and

preemption. Chinese thinkers expect wars could easily stem from

ethnic tensions on the borders or disputes over the territories

China claims from its neighbors: the Spratly, Paracel, Senkaku

Islands, and Taiwan. In restructuring its forces away from heavy

ground forces against a Soviet invasion, it is limited by poor

power projection capabilities, technological backwardness, and

cash shortages. Thus China began an ambitious arms sales program

to raise cash and is reorganizing its forces to give greater 

power and mobility to specially tasked "Fist" forces. These

forces are packaged to meet regional specifications and are

oriented to amphibious and airmobile forces to be used as firststrike forces in the expected limited wars. These forces'

requirements: fighter air, aircraft carriers, and ground attack
32

aircraft are just what China has already contracted for, bought,

or publicly showed interest in acquiring. Equally important is

that Russia knows and regularly discusses Chinese doctrine and

force planning and apparently disregards much of that research.

In 1995, sources reported a willingness in principle to

license production of the SU-27 to China if it first buys 100-150

of them. In the end China got the license and only bought 72.

Those favoring sales to China argue that there will be a SinoJapanese battle to dominate the region that will principally

feature China's ambition to build a CVBG (carrier battle group)

in the South China Sea that requires long-range air power and

justifies sale of Russia's supersonic TU-22. More recently, the

rocket motor sales to China that violated the MTCR successfully

survived U.S. pressure to cancel the sale, showing the clout of

Russia's arms sales lobby.

It does appear that this lobby has prevailed. The scale of

arms and other commercial deals, including nuclear ones, suggests

confirmation of reports that whole Russian factories are working

exclusively for China and thus depend on Beijing's orders.

Reports from the submarine factories producing Kilo-class

submarines in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod explicitly

confirm that they have no other contracts and that China obtained

secret specifications for the subs that it is compelling the

factories to add. At the same time, numerous military officers

express alarm that Russian weapons sales, technology transfer,

and offsets are creating a China that tomorrow will be able to

arm these submarines with indigenously produced torpedoes and

cruise missiles. China will also maintain them exclusively by

Chinese efforts or add nuclear power sources to them. The fact

that there is no good answer to these concerns and that Russia's

ability to control by its own means the producers, sellers, and

China's access to them is eroding is very disturbing given

China's recent behavior.

ENDNOTE

1. This list of weapons sold until 1996 is taken from the

following three unclassified publications which are themselves

based exclusively on unclassified and open sources. Stephen

Blank, Challenging the New World Order: The Arms Transfer

Policies of the Russian Republic, Carlisle Barracks, PA:

Strategic Studies Institute, 1993, pp. 53-60; Idem., Why Russian

Policy Is Failing in Asia, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic

Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, forthcoming; and Idem., "Sino-Russian Arms Bazaar," Jane's Intelligence Review, Vol.

VIII, No. 7, July 1996, p. 30.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

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*****

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Author

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