Russian-Chinese cooperation in the military-technical sphere: preconditions, problems and consequences

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Russian-Chinese cooperation in the military-technical sphere: preconditions, problems and consequences

cooperation political arms trade

Post-bipolar phase of relations between the Russian Federation (RF) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) is characterized by a dynamic dialogue in many areas. The cementing factor of actual multidimensional cooperation between the parties was the normalization of political relations and the elimination of ideological controversy after the collapse of the USSR and socialistic camp. Moreover, Moscow and Beijing formally demonstrates similar or common approaches to solving the range of regional and global issues, principles of conduct in international relations, a vision of the future world order. Overall in the last years parties systematically at the official level focus on highly unprecedented level of bilateral relations and the achievements of comprehensive strategic partnership relations, first proclaimed in the joint declaration of the Beijing 1996. Characteristic is also the activation of cooperation especially in «sensitive» areas of international interaction, such as military-technical dimension of partnership. However, this vector of Russian-Chinese cooperation is marked by certain characteristics, which allow to get a deeper understanding of the content of bilateral cooperation and to predict the prospects of its further development.

Given the evolving character of bilateral relations between Russia and China, which represent a model of interaction between the two centers of power in contemporary international relations, this process become systematically an object of scientific research.

The study of military-technical cooperation (MTC) as one of the most important segments of the Russian-Chinese cooperation is performed in parallel with the development of a practical dialogue between the parties. In this perspective, it should be noted the work of American investigators

S. Blank, R.H. Donaldson and John. A. Donaldson, Russian experts K. Makienko, A. Klimenko, A. Vazhnova and scientific achievements of the Chinese scholar Zheng Qi, which directly analyze the bilateral MTC. The issue of military-technical cooperation also affected in studies of Western, Chinese and Russian scientists who investigate the relations of Russia and China in general or focus on a several aspects (Sh. Garnett, R. Weitz) or consider MTC within the military vector (V. Chaschyn, A. Migunov, Ming-Yen Tsai).

In particular, for this investigation represent a value works of such analysts as M. Poddubnaya, K. Ryan, R. Farley, M. de Haas, as well as research materials of Stockholm International peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Center for Analysis of World arms trade (TSAMTO).

The purpose of the study is to analyze the key factors of Russian - Chinese cooperation in the military-technical sphere, the main problems and actual consequences of this process.

Military vector of cooperation is one of the pillars of the strategic partnership between Russia and China, which, as noted by former Minister of Defense of RF S. Ivanov during a press conference on the joint exercise «Peace Mission» in August 2005, should be allocated to three aspects: military-political consultations, practical interaction of military forces within military exercises and military-technical cooperation.

Actually the military-technical sphere of collaboration between Russia and China was officially declared by the parties as one of the key vectors of strategic partnership in the base bilateral international legal act - Treaty of neighborliness, friendship and cooperation of 16 July 2001, which clearly demonstrates the importance of this area for bilateral relations.

Indeed, at that time the Russian-Chinese military-technical cooperation was at a very high level, because in the 1990-s and early 2000s China with India were the largest importers of Russian weapons, on which together accounted for 60-80% of Russian arms exports. Thus, obviously, that production of Russian military-industrial complex (MIC)

was a key source of military technology to PRC, because in 2003 it accounted for 97% of all the supply of arms to the Celestial Empire, while the Chinese segment in structure of world arms imports was 14% f The presences of such large-scale and close cooperation between the parties logically causes the need for identification of key preconditions for the emergence of such situation.

The situation of Russia in many areas of both domestic functioning and foreign policy activity after the end of the Cold War and the era of bipolar architecture in international relations characterized by a large number of problematic aspects. In particular, Moscow quickly has lost positions that recently were occupied by Soviet Union in the global arms market, which resulted in a sharp decline in volumes and narrowing of the geographical area of exports of defense industry. Among the concrete reasons of the designated situation can be identified next moments: the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, reducing the intensity of military-technical cooperation with developing countries and the transition in trade relations with them for hard currency^, the difficult financial situation of such traditional buyers of soviet weapons as Ethiopia and Syria, and the application of international sanctions against Iraq and Iran. Besides, Russian MIC was in a difficult position because of general lack of budgetary allocations and reduction of public procurement. This complex served as an impetus to searching for new markets its military products.

In this light, it is necessary to remember that the leadership of the PRC in 1979 started the military reform, which aims at modernization, reconstruction and technical re-equipment of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). This area of domestic activity was launched in 1978 and is part of the national course «four modernizations» - the general strategy of China's development in the late XX - early XXI century.

In the early 1990's issue of PLA's upgrading received a new impetus. Having regard to the Soviet collapse, Chinese military strategists have made the transition from the concept of large-scale land war doctrine to peripheral defense, which provided limited but effective military operations in border areas. These doctrinal changes demanded upgrading of air and naval forces.

However, in the way of implementation of task to increase the effectiveness of own army the Celestial Empire was facing unfavorable factors: China did not have the necessary capabilities for technical reequipment of PLA, which in turn caused the need of purchases abroad. In 1989, China's military modernization process was hampered due to the introduction of an embargo on supplying arms to Beijing by Western countries for reason of the tragic events in Tiananmen Square (shooting demonstrations). It is pertinent to mention that as a result of this embargo Russia has become virtually a monopoly in the field of arms exports to the Middle Kingdom, as until such action, within 70-80 years of XX century, the United States and the EU carried out a large-scale sale of defense technologies to China.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union made significant changes in Russian-Chinese relations, in which in the early 1990s were apparent tendencies of political warming and convergence. This created the foundation for the resumption of cooperation in military-technical sphere, which was dinamically developed during the period of Sino-Soviet ideological affinity, and the parties, taking into account the effects of shifts in the global architectonics and some features in its development, activated this area of cooperation on the basis of mutual interest in the form of seller (RF) and buyer (PRC). It is to be noted that most large-scale deliveries were realized of aviation and naval equipment, and means of air defense.

Completing the analysis of factors, that assisted activation of collaboration of Moscow and Beijing in the military-technical field, should highlight the following points: geopolitical (China's striving to become a leader of the Third World, affirm as a regional power and gain superpower status, a common desire to build a multipolar world, the pressure on the parties from the United States, NATO expansion, as a result of which Russia has lost its markets for military products), financial and economic (dynamic and permanent economic growth of China, which created a financial opportunity to modernize the PLA and military production in general; the need for modernization of the naval forces of PRC to protect sea route of transportation of energy resources that are critical for further economic development; economic devastation in Russia in the 1990's that have caused the necessity for the export of its products and getting investment, particularly chinese).

However, according to research of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) «golden era» in MTC between Moscow and Beijing lasted only until the middle 2000s. So if in 2002-2006 45% of Russian arms exports were sent to China, in 2012 the volume of Russian supplies was in six times less compared to 2006.

That situation causes the necessary to identify a number of factors, which are the acting drivers of problematic points of military-technical cooperation between Russia and China and led to stagnation of interaction in this area. In this case, we note that relations between states should be considered, first of all, through the prism of realistic and pragmatic approach and aspiration of parties to turn to as many as possible advantage for itself and for strengthening of national power.

Advance actions of the Chinese sidefor unauthorized copying of Russian military-industrial complex products with the aim to raise of technological level of PLA s armaments and the need to build its own defense industry taking into account considerable lagging in this sphere from the countries of the Western World. The beginning of understanding of the technological backwardness and start the process of large-scale military modernization, according to the french military analyst Jean-B. Brisset, was the Gulf War of 1991, during that Beijing understood that its military technique (analogical that was used by the Iraqi army) fully became antiquated, and MIC - backward and inefficient. It should be recalled the emergence of the Taiwan missile crisis in 1995-1996, when there was a likelihood of armed conflict between the Chinese army and more technologically advanced American troops, also the presence of contradictions of territorial nature in relations between China a large number of neighboring states, separatist sentiments of the muslim population in Xinjiang and clear intention of the Communist Party of China to return Taiwan (Republic of China) in the Chinese mainland, that in a result became a complex impulse for the modernization of military capabilities.

The source of strengthening of national security to Beijing, as it was already marked, was the trade of military equipment with Russia, in which China purposefully and methodically carried out the unauthorized copying of Russian armaments (to facilitate this process PRC originally purchased products with low technological level) with the aim of creation on their basis own analogues, the strategy which China successfully uses since the days of the Vietnam War.

As a result, has emerged and, despite the signing of a bilateral agreement in 2008, remains on the agenda the problem of protecting intellectual property, what is the key cause of stagnation phenomena in MTC between Russia and China. An interesting fact is that, despite the expression disturbance and dissatisfaction from Russia, the Chinese leadership formally denies the facts of unauthorized copying and processing of Russian military equipment. For instance, in 2012 during a briefing spokesperson of China's Ministry of Defense Geng Yanshen indicated that «this kind of information does not meet the reality».

It should be noted that this approach allowed the Celestial Empire to build quickly its own defense industry that could meet the growing demand for armaments and military equipment. Taking this into account in relations with Russia in the sphere of military-technical cooperation China emphasis shifted from buying finished products for common development of new models of weapons and obtaining licenses. Thus China continues to show interest in receiving newest weapons from Russia.

Because of this strategy and short-sightedness of the Kremlin «s policy, China has become a competitor of RF in the global market weapons. So China, according to SIPRI, in 2012 at the first time has entered to the top five largest global exporters of weapons since the end of the Cold War (part of the Celestial Empire was 5%, the volume of foreign supplies of products of Chinese military-industrial complex during 2008-2012 has increased on162%, the main importer - Pakistan).

Based on the models of Russian military equipment, Beijing has managed to create its own series of related military vehicles, particularly in the field of aviation. Chinese analogues due to lower pricing, and using of soft loans at zero or low interest rates for the purchase of arms, pushed the production of Russian MIC of its traditional markets: Bangladesh, Libya, Iran, Malaysia, Egypt, Venezuela, Myanmar (the price of the most popular Chinese weapons, created by the Russian models, is on average 20-40% lower). Experts estimate that the faking of weapons make annually economic losses for Russia in the amount of $ 6 billion. Certainly, this situation causes negative effects on the dynamic of bilateral military-technical cooperation.

The dynamic growth of China's power, including military capabilities, in combination with the conflict moments of history in bilateral mutual relations. The modern China's military policy is aimed at providing the main national strategic objective - the creation of a modernized state, which will occupy a dominant position in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR), where the key tactical direction is the creation of powerful armed forces capable of protecting the country from external threats. In addition, there is a conversion of the economic potential into the military that allows China to expand its range of interest.

However, APR also plays an important role in external Moscow's strategy in the context of the realization of economic and geopolitical tasks, where dynamic China is the key to achieving the Russian state's foreign policy interests by means of military-technical cooperation in this part of the world.

Therefore, it would seem, at a first sight, transfers of arms and military equipment between Moscow and Beijing are mutually beneficial and important segment of the bilateral strategic partnership. Nevertheless, due to the presence of alarmism and mistrust of China as in some segments of Russian society and political circles, there are significant qualitative and quantitative restrictions on exports of military-industrial complex, which is manifested in selling to China those armaments what will represent the smallest potential threat to Moscow. As it was highlighted by the American expert D. Mitchell, the Russian side tried to sell air and naval systems, not ground military-technical platform able to challenge Russian interests along their eastern rather weak periphery.

In this contest it costs to remember, that the aggravation of political relations between the parties in the late 1950s has led to the armed conflict on the island Damanskii in 1969. The historical memory in combination with the current weakness of Russia's geopolitical positions in its eastern regions (Far East and Siberia), demographic congestion and the growing needs of China in raw materials, which in large quantities are present in the territory of these regions, the systematic increase of the inflow of Chinese migrants and the presence in Chinese society the idea of «development north virgin lands» objectively cause disturbance in Russia and provides negative effect on the bilateral MTC. In this light, it should be noted that in December 1996 the ex-Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Ivan Rodionov included the PRC to the governmental list of potential threats, although later he was forced to abandon this view under pressure from officials.

But now officially the Russian leadership not only identifies China as a potential or real threat, but rather refutes these arguments. An Illustrative example of this is the statement of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced during a visit in 2013 to the PRC, that China does not represent any danger for Russia, what demonstrates a degree of duality in relations between Moscow and Beijing both in this area and in other spheres of strategic interaction.

Russian strategists and experts with a view to future scenarios of security from time to time continue to raise the issue of whether is in the interests of Moscow the China's strengthening, that is, in opinion of author, is appropriate because in this case for Russia economic incomes can change on the strategic costs caused by an assistance in modernization of the army of neighbor-economic heavyweight.

Undoubtedly, the question of arms trade is characterized by great significance for Russian-Chinese bilateral relations, as opposed to other transfers buying and selling military equipment affects not only economic, but and in a greater measure and political considerations, because obtaining weapons changes the balance of power between states and influences the rebalancing of power in the world politics.

Taking into account it, and also leaning on opinion of classic of political realism G. Morgenthau, who asserted that «military force is in international politics… important material factor that provides political power of the state», in our view, the existence of distrust between Russia and Celestial Empire in military-technical aspects of relations is an objective law of bilateral relations between the states that have significant geopolitical ambitions and a row of conflict periods in mutual history.

Summarizing the analysis of Russian-Chinese cooperation in the military-technical sphere it is necessary to determine the practical consequences of this process, which have both national and regional dimension:

- due to the large-scale exports of military technology in the 1990s and early 2000s to China (and India, which is the basis Celestial's competitor towards gaining access to advanced Russian weapons) Russia managed to solve several problems: 1 despite narrowing of the internal and external markets, save its own defense industry, which was inherited from the Soviet era; 2. get the necessary financial resources for the modernization of the MTC as well as the armed forces, considering the fact that military-technical production is a high-tech process and second article of export after natural resources, increase competitive advantage economy that ultimately become one of the main factors that allows Russia to declares itself as a regional superpower and to realize geopolitical ambitions using military force; 3. in the process of MTC

Moscow gained the objective possibilities for control over the process of modernization of the PLA and the Chinese military-industrial complex;

- purchasing of Russian weapons allowed Celestial to build its own defense industry, to upgrade the armed forces and to strengthen military capabilities in the areas, which allows the country to become a military superpower;

- the increase of defensive capacity of Beijing automatically has reflected on the China's foreign policy, especially in the light of the manifestation of greater aggressiveness towards territorial claims, which in turn affected the regional stability in the Asia-Pacific region. One example of this is the declaration of China on November 23, 2013 extension of the identification zone of air defense on territory of islands, that are under the control of the Republic of Korea and Japan, however remain the object of China's territorial intrusion. This, certainly, caused a corresponding negative reaction from Seoul, Washington and Tokyo, that eventually carried out a stimulating effect on the escalation of tensions in the region and could trigger further incidents in the future;

- dynamic extension of military power of Beijing creates a situation of «security dilemma», because the presence of actual controversy of territorial character with China leads Asia-Pacific countries to increase assignation on defensive charges. This especially relates to Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Malaysia;

- besides, alarmism before the «Chinese threat» is pushing these countries to the search a collaboration with alternative centers of power in international relations, that's why another consequence of the Russian - Chinese military-technical cooperation is promoting and strengthening cooperation between states-opponents of the China's regional policy and the United States, which consider Beijing as the most credible competitor in the struggle for world leadership. Moreover, the USA given the growth of military capabilities of Beijing are try to restrain this process by the increase of military presence in Asia Pacific, forming here military-political coalitions and ensuring transparency of the Chinese military program;

- additionally, becoming a global exporter of arms and redirecting of Chinese defense industry products to developing countries, on a background of the simultaneous weakening of the Russian position in this direction, can result in the re-balancing process in a number of world «hot spots». For example, the rearmament of Pakistan (which purchases for over 50% of current Chinese arms exports), consequently can changes the balance of power in regional Indo-Pakistan confrontation.

In this light it should be added, that Russia, for its part, is also negatively examines the prospects for China's dominance in the Asia-Pacific region, and therefore continues to develop military-technical cooperation with India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia, which respectively causes outrage of Beijing. In particular, in April 2012 China «recommended» Russia refuse to cooperate with Vietnam, which apparently serves as another striking expression of mutual suspicion and «veiled» distrust between the parties.

At the same time it is possible to predict that the actual deterioration of relations between Russia and the Western states, caused by the waging of Moscow an undeclared war against Ukraine and Crimea rejection could be as a favorable factor for the recovery of closer cooperation between the parties in the MTC.

Thus, elimination of ideological confrontation between Russia and China in the last decade of the twentieth century and the subsequent political rapprochement has allowed to activate the cooperation between the parties in many areas of international relations, including military-technical vector.

Analyzing the factors, that led to the activation of MTC between Russia and China in the early 1990s to 2005, it should be noted that, on the one hand, due to the collapse of the bipolar structure of international relations and the socialist camp Russian defense industry got into got in a difficult situation, where the general economic crisis, which caused an absence of internal orders and loss of traditional markets, forced to find new customers. In this situation due to the embargo on arms supplies from the Western countries and the presence in the Chinese leadership aspirations of large-scale modernization of the armed forces and MIC because of its weak technological level, conflicts of territorial character with neighboring states and fear of losing power, presence of the financial capacity, this position was taken by China.

However, the close military-technical cooperation in the form of seller (RF) and buyer (PRC) at the beginning of the XXI century, fell into stagnation, base reasons of which consisted in economic losses caused by the unauthorized copying by the Chinese side of Russian military equipment and with further sale of modified technique in the world market of weapon, presence of certain level of distrust arising from the conflict historical past, the growth of China's power, on the one hand, and the weakness of Russia in their eastern regions on the other.

As a result of the bilateral MTC, Russian Federation has succeeded to save the potential of defensive industry, to continue its modernization and improve the technological level of the armed forces, which greatly increased the capabilities of the perspective of implementing leadership ambitions in the post-Soviet space and realization of the geopolitical project Russian-Soviet «small» Eurasia. At the same time, China through MTC with Russia has grown into one of the leading arms exporters, made of PLA's modernization and development of its own defense industry, which has strengthened its position as a challenger for the leadership in the regional and global dimensions. As a result, there was increasing assertiveness in China's foreign policy in the context of territorial claims, causing a the «security dilemma» in Asia Pacific and growth of alarmism before the «Chinese threat» among the neighboring countries, strengthening of American presence in the region and the simultaneous enhancing of cooperation between the United States and opponents of Beijing's Asia-Pacific foreign policy.⁴ Тайваньский «ракетный кризис» и поворот Китая к сближению с Россией.

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