Russia Could Lose Billions in Arms Sales to China. Here’s Why

Russia’s position as a main regional arms exporter appears likely to veer into an unprecedented decline after years of living on the edge. China seems ready to seize the initiative, possibly overtaking Russia as the main supplier of weapons to nations that cannot afford or are prohibited from buying European weapons.

The Background

The hands exchange with Russia has tended to go one way for the majority of its history, with technology and equipment going to China in exchange for information, money, and political clout.

After World War II, the USSR helped establish China’s defense’s industrial base( DIB ), entering into licensing and technology transfer agreements that allowed the PRC to construct Soviet equipment from Soviet kits with Soviet technical assistance. Although the Sino-Soviet Split and the Cultural Revolution had a severe impact on the development of China’s DIB’s, over occasion the PRCs defense commercial center became more advanced. The Soviet Union kept using arms sales as a glue to bind customers to long-term social ties, but it was exceedingly up against Chinese weapons that were less expensive.

China once more purchased Russian military hardware and technologies as the Cold War came to an end. Russia was eager to sell China whatever Beijing wanted to buy in order to make overhaul the Chinese DIB because it was in desperate need of painful currency.

The sophistication of Chinese industry increased over time, while Russia’s defense’s industry stagnated due to a dearth of funding, the absence of cutting-edge technology, and an aging workforce. Russia has been able to keep a sizable portion of the trade competition, but it now faces three significant issues:

The Clients

Due to the fact that acquisition decisions are influenced by interoperability issues and context-specific export control policies, the arms export market can be wonderfully thick.

Russia and China typically compete for the same customer platform because the West has also seized a large portion of the most lucrative markets. Portability with tradition equipment is easier to achieve than it would be with American or European equipment because the majority of Chinese technology has some Russian bases. Taiwanese defense equipment is still very affordable compared to Russian. This almost certainly implies that Soviet market share will suffer as a result of China’s export’s development.

The modern era

For sixty years, technological advancement was what made Russian military technologies more appealing to Chinese consumers.

Russian economy still had an advantage over Chinese business even as the Russian DIB deteriorated following the fall of the USSR, allowing Russia to buy China its most cutting-edge machinery in the 1990s and significantly enhance Chinese military capabilities.

This situation no longer holds.  China is light years ahead of Russia in key defense fields such as shipbuilding (except for submarines), ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, and advanced fighter aircraft. 

More importantly, China has a thriving technology industry that can provide chips and some cutting-edge parts required to create equipment that is affordable globally. Customers of Taiwanese equipment you anticipate that China will be able to update its advanced weapons over time.

Reliability

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has had few democratic repercussions in the developing world, as most observers have noted.

Nevertheless, the fact that developing nations have restricted their support for Ukraine does not imply that they support Russia or want to impose a long-term shackles on Moscow. Secondary sanctions are a possibility for anyone purchasing Russian supplies, and it is still unclear whether Moscow will ever be allowed to reintegrate into civilized society.

Probably more significantly, the Russian defense sector is primarily concerned with assisting Russia in winning the war. Russia’s ability’s to keep the promises that its business is making has been openly questioned, even though this hasn’t stopped it from finishing agreements with its trade partners. Supply chain issues have made it challenging for the protection industry to develop advanced equipment, especially if Russia may find the extra capacity to load export orders.

China triumphs?

There is every reason to think that Russia is losing hope in the future of its defence export industry. China sells to the same client base as Russia and can make better equipment. China’s experience with Pakistan has certainly been instructive, but it still needs to work on some of the auxiliary aspects of its defense trade company( in particular, technology transfer and long-term maintenance ).

Cities that purchased their defense hardware from Russia now have the option of moving to a less hazardous, more dependable, and reasonably priced nation. It’s not’s entirely clear that the war was what caused this change because many of these elements existed prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, it undoubtedly accelerated the deterioration of Russia’s export’s leads, which can legitimately be seen as yet another victim of Putinian hubris.

Author Biography

Dr. Robert Farley, a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, has been an instructor of stability and diplomacy at the Patterson School since 2005. In 1997, he earned his BS and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. 2004: D. from the University of Washington. The Battleship Book( Wildside, 2016 ), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology( University of Chicago, 2020 ), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and The Finance Domain Across the Ages( Lynne Rienner, 2023 ) are all written by Dr. Farley. He has made significant contributions to numerous journals and magazines, such as the American Prospect, World Politics Review, the Diplomat: APAC, and the National Interest. Additionally, Dr. Farley is the top director and founder of Lawyers, Guns and Money.