Procurement: China Cleans Out Russia

Procurement: China Cleans Out Russia via @Strategypage

April 12, 2012: For more than a decade, China has been a major importer of weapons. No more, despite a rapidly growing defense budget. Two years ago, China dropped to second place in weapons imports, and last year slipped to fourth place. The main reason is that China is producing more of the high-tech military gear it used to import. The main reason for that is massive theft of foreign military technology. While the best stuff was stolen from the West (usually via the Internet), the most useful designs were stolen from Russia. That's because Chinese manufacturing capabilities, for many exotic military technologies, are not yet up to Western standards. But the Chinese can make useful copies of Russian tech. Throughout the 1990s, Russian arms exports to China were brisk, peaking at $2 billion a year. But six years ago, it all stopped. Well, for all practical purposes, with ...

Full article: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htproc/articles/20120412...