Aviation of the Middle Kingdom - the Clone Wars?

January 4 2011 3

Successful political cooperation between Russia and China does not eliminate serious problems in the field of military-technical partnership.

The military power of the PRC is largely due to military-technical cooperation with Russia, which over the past 20 years has transferred advanced military technologies to China, developed in the Soviet Union. But now in Russia, it seems, they are not so happy that the same Su-27 fighters sold to the Chinese at one time.

Moscow is worried not so much by the security problem as by purely economic consequences for the country: China has succeeded so much in copying Russian equipment that it is ready to supply such copies at dumping prices.

However, there are optimists who believe that there is nothing to worry about, and a certain technological backwardness of China in the field aviation gives Russia hope not to suffer from Chinese clones.

In many military reference books in the sections devoted to Chinese aircraft, after the name of the fighter in brackets is the name of the one from which it was copied. J-11B, according to experts, is the Russian Su-27, J-15 - Su-33, the earlier J-6 and J-7, respectively, MiG-19 and MiG-21.

Often, as in the case of the MiG-21, Beijing had a license to manufacture the aircraft. In other cases, it’s about what some experts call “reverse technology”, others about cloning or even stealing.

Soviet school

The Chinese army is generally armed almost exclusively or weapons Soviet or Russian production, either made or developed in China according to Soviet and Russian patterns.

“It all began in the 1950s, when the USSR transferred a lot of different equipment, technology and production licenses to China, but most importantly - trained the first generation of engineers, military technologists and designers. And from that moment on, the development of Chinese military equipment was determined” , - told in an interview with BBC military commentator RIA News Ilya Kramnik.

The next stage, which determined the actual modern look of Chinese military aviation, began with the collapse of the USSR. In 1990-ies, China was able to get in Russia the latest at the time of development.

"The Chinese were given almost everything they had. China received all the scientific and technical results of experimental design and research and development in the field, at least for a very small amount - several times less than what the Soviet Union spent on it. , tactical aviation ", - said the aviation expert, columnist for the magazine" Rise "Alexander Velovich.

The tipping point

And this was fully manifested at the last Airshow China air show in Zhuhai, where China presented its newest aircraft, and Russia - the traditional participant of this air show - performed mockups.

In the West, many have regarded it as a symbol of Beijing's growing air power and the surrender of positions by the Russian aviation industry.

The American newspaper Wall Street Journal even called it a "turning point", after which China allegedly would begin to win back traditional Russian markets in Asia and other parts of the world, while at the same time rapidly developing its own military aviation.

Aviation Explorer expert Vladimir Karnozov believes that, indeed, the grains of Russian technology in China have fallen on fertile soil and the seedlings are already clearly visible.

"The cost of labor in China is lower than in Russia, the conditions for functioning are better due to strong state support, and therefore the Chinese can now produce aircraft that would be at the level of requirements, but cheaper than Russian or Western ones," explains Karnozov.

Technological problems

True, China’s expansion into the aviation market, according to Vladimir Karnozov, will begin no sooner than eight to ten years from now. There are many reasons for this, and most of them are technological.

China has not yet been able to obtain or copy the latest Russian developments in the field of avionics and radar. He is actively trying to catch up on the lost, but there is even more serious trouble - the lack of high-quality engines of its own production. That is, there are engines, but unreliable and with an extremely low resource, which is only tens of hours.

However, as the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Ruslan Pukhov explains, China is likely to solve this problem over the next decade: “They can, for example, bring their engines to 200-300 hours, to a minimum. And just change the engines quickly for low-income clients like Bangladesh, but for themselves to buy engines in Russia. "

Противостояние

It should be borne in mind that China not only has to catch up with the more technologically advanced countries, but also has to deal with their growing opposition. Since 1989, an arms embargo has been imposed on China in Europe.

In recent years, Europe has been as active as it has unsuccessfully tried to cancel it. But oppose the United States, which use all possible economic levers to prevent its withdrawal.

The United States is even wary of supplying its latest modification, F-16 fighter jets, to its ally in the region, Taiwan, not so much because it will have political consequences, but because of fears of technology leaks.

And Russia, which has armed China in the last twenty years, is now seriously restricting its exports. For example, in 2009, the deal for the sale of several deck fighters Su-33 did not take place. Moscow was alarmed by Beijing’s desire to acquire such a small batch of cars that, in the Russians’s opinion, indicated a desire only to copy the plane.

However, according to some sources, China already has a prototype of such a fighter from 2001, bought in one of the Soviet republics, from which the deck fighter J-15 was copied.

Two years ago, at a meeting of the Russian-Chinese intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation, an agreement was signed between Russia and China on the protection of intellectual property. But, judging by the urgency of the current discussions around this problem, it does not work very well.

Technology race

Will other states be able to stop the expansion of Chinese military aircraft to the world market? As Ilya Kramnik believes, the best defense in such a situation is the development of our own aviation industry.

“When China nevertheless achieves the necessary reliability characteristics for its Su-27, Russia will already have a wide Su-35 series, the fifth generation fighter will already be on the way to the series, or mass production,” the expert believes.

However, according to experts, the Chinese economy is developing more rapidly than in Russia. Is it possible, accordingly, to assume that in the long term, the aviation industry of China will still be able to catch up and overtake the Russian one?

Ruslan Pukhov believes that it’s not worthwhile to operate with arithmetic techniques in such a complex area as high aviation technologies.

"There is no linear connection between general economic and technological development. You can be a country with a developed economy, but at the same time, you can’t make combat aircraft," explains Pukhav.

"It is difficult to import an engineering school, if it is interrupted, as was the case with Germany after losing World War II, it is extremely difficult to restore it later," he adds.

Cooperation

But from this situation for China there is a way out. According to Vladimir Karnozov, Moscow and Beijing should unite efforts in military-technical cooperation in the field of aviation.

“We need to understand that now we are no longer making the best planes on the planet. The main trend in the world market is globalization of production. The old practice of supplying finished products or a screwdriver assembly does not work well today, and after a few years it will not work at all,” says the expert.

However, in Russia, the thesis of globalization and unification of efforts is understood and tried to establish international cooperation in the development and production of military aircraft. 20-22 December, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited India, where he launched the project to develop a fifth-generation joint fighter.

However, Beijing does not seem to see Russia as a future aircraft-building partner: at present, China is actively cooperating in this area with another large regional state - Pakistan, which, however, is not famous for its aircraft-building traditions.