Study On The Sino-Russian Arms Trade After The Cold War

Russia suffered a disastrous recession after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Its military strength, especially the conventional armed forces declined sharply. Because of the decrease of arm orders, Russia’s military industry lacked funds and came to the edge of collapse. As government had no ability to provide financial supports, Russian military enterprises had to be self-reliance. They strived for survival and development funds through selling inventory weapons and attracting foreign orders with advanced technologies. After the end of bipolar confrontation, rapid-rising China is gradually being seen as a potential enemy of the West. The military threat from US and Japan made China realize the urgency to enhance military power. In the case of the Western arms embargo, China naturally turned to Russia who had advanced weapons that need to be exported urgently. The first contract of 24 Su-27 fighters in 1992, marked the beginning of the Sino-Russian arms trade. From then on, China began to import a variety of conventional weapons in batches from Russia, including aircraft, ships, missiles, air defense systems and so on. China was Russia’s largest arms export market at one point. Russian weapons accounted for an incredible 80% in China’s imported arms, even closed to 90% in some years. However, with the development of Sino-Russian arms trade, restrictive factors emerged, like intellectual property disputes, competition on the international arms market, special geopolitical relations. Sino-Russian arms trade began to decline after peaking in the early 2000s and stayed at low level of long-term. Therefore, some western scholars believe that Sino-Russian arms trade have hit a dead end. But my paper has different opinions. In recent two years, Sino-Russian negotiations on Su-35 fighters, "Amur" class submarines and S-400 air defense systems indicated that arms trade between the two countries still have great potential. However, it doesn’t mean that high trade volumes of past consecutive years will reappear in future Sino-Russian arms trade, which decided by the transformation of arms trade form from finished weapons deal to technical cooperation. The future arms trade between the two countries will be closely related to the development of Sino-Russian relations. What China should adhere in future Sino-Russian arms trade is grasping favorable opportunities to get more key technologies and ultimately achieve defense modernization based on our own.