China’s Military Modernization: the Russian Factor

Asian Defense News: Moscow Defense Brief by Mikhail Barabanov
January 07, 2010 ~ The Chinese leaders hoped the military parade in Beijing on October 1, the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic, would showcase the success of communist China’s “Fourth Modernization” – that of its armed forces. The event was supposed to demonstrate that rapid progress in military technology has propelled the country into the ranks of the world’s most advanced military powers.

All the brand-new military equipment put on display in Beijing has produced the required impression on the patriotic Chinese public, as well as some Western observers now gushing about the newly modernized People’s Liberation Army.

A more careful look at China’s military capability suggests there is little ground for either excessive optimism or alarmism – depending on the observer’s attitude to the country – about China’s status as a great military power.

The fruits of new great friendship

For almost three decades between the Soviet-Chinese bust-up in the early 1960s and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, China was mired in technological backwardness. After the generous flow of military equipment from Moscow ended abruptly in 1961, the Chinese army was stuck with old Soviet technology dating back to the 1950s. The obsolete MiG-19 Farmer fighter jets manufactured under a Soviet license (Chinese designation J-6) remained the backbone of the Chinese fighter fleet. The adoption of the early versions of the MiG-21 Fishbed (J-7) fighter was excruciatingly slow and painful. The bulk of the bomber fleet was made of the Il-28 (H-5) Beagle aircraft, plus a few long-range Tu-16 (H-6) Badger bombers. The piston-engine Mi-4 (Z-5) Hound remained the main Chinese helicopter, the T-54 (designated in China as the T-59) the main battle tank, and the S-75 (HQ-2) the main SAM system. The Chinese navy relied on old Soviet designs of the 1950s, or their simplified clones. And the Chinese ballistic missile technology was based on the early Soviet R-2 (SS-2), R-11 (SS-1B) and R-12 (SS-4) missiles, which Nikita Khrushchev had given away as a gift.

China’s own attempts at weapons-building tended to yield either feeble contraptions such as the J-8 Finback fighter jet and the Ming class submarine, or slipshod modernizations of tanks and missiles that were obsolete even before they left the drawing board. The main thrust of the Chinese defense industry’s effort was therefore aimed at ripping off the more recent Soviet designs, which Beijing was smuggling in via third countries. That is how China had cloned the T-72 main battle tank by the late 1980s, as well as the BMP-1 armoured infantry fighting vehicles, the 122 mm and 152 mm self-propelled and towed howitzers, the 122 mm Grad MRL systems, the Malyutka (AT-3) anti-tank missiles, and the Strela-2 (SA-7) man-portable SAMs.

In the 1980s China managed to achieve a certain degree of rapprochement with the West, based on shared hostility towards the Soviet Union. That gave it access to some modern Western technology. From France, it licensed the Super Frelon (Z-8) and Dauphine (Z-9) helicopters, as well as the Crotale SAM system. Another SAM system, Aspide, was licensed from Italy. China also bought a number of other weapons systems from France and Italy, and signed contracts with US companies to retrofit Chinese planes with new avionics. Another key partner was Israel, which became instrumental in the development of the new J-10 fighter jet. But the Tiananmen events of June 1989 soon put an end to China’s imports of military technology from the West, and plunged the country’s defense industry into a new bout of technological isolation.

Fortunately for China, relations with the Soviet Union took a sharp turn for the better at about the same time, and new defense contracts with Moscow soon followed. In 1991, China signed the first deals to buy modern Soviet weapons, including 24 Su-27 Flanker fighters and two of the Project 877EK (Kilo class) conventional submarines.

This breakthrough was vitally important to China. It would not be an exaggeration to say that modern Russian weapons and defense technology bought after 1991 have been at the heart of the People’s Liberation Army’s modernization and the Chinese defense industry’s progress in recent years. For China, Russia has become an abundant source of almost every type of modern weapons technology.

Thanks to the massive supplies of the Su-27 and Su-30 families of fighter jets from Russia (a total of 178 by 2005), the Chinese Air Force has leapfrogged from the second to the fourth generation of combat aircraft. The launch of production of the Su-27 (J-11) jets in Shenyang under a 1996 license deal gave a similar fillip to the Chinese aerospace sector, which had acquired access to modern avionics, radars, engines and missiles.

Supplies of modern Russian jet engines became a real boon for the Chinese combat aircraft makers, hidebound as they were by the unavailability of powerful modern propulsion units. China has finally managed to launch mass production of the only two decent fighter jets that it has - the J-10 and the FC-1, fitted with the Russian AL-31FN and RD-93 turbofan engines, respectively.

A total of 12 Project 636 and Project 877 (Kilo class) conventional submarines have been built for China by Russian shipyards, in addition to four Project 956 (Sovremennyi class) destroyers. For the first time in its history, the Chinese Navy has got hold of some truly modern ships with advanced acoustics, radars, torpedoes and supersonic anti-ship missiles (Moskit and Club). And the Project 956 destroyers are the first Chinese Navy ships armed with medium-range air-defense missile systems (as opposed to short-range missiles).

Even more importantly than buying individual Russian-made weapons, China has been able to acquire and license a wide range of Russian military technology, and to make use of Russian military expertise to design some new weapons - indeed, sometimes entire new weapons systems - of its own. In the 1990s and the early part of this decade, many if not most of the Russian military design bureaus and research facilities worked for the Chinese, who had become their main customer. As a result, many of the latest Chinese weapons systems developed over the past decade bear the hallmarks of their Russian origins.

One example is the Bakhcha-U turrets of the new Chinese ZTD-05 armoured infantry fighting vehicles, which were paraded on October 1. It was designed for China by the Tula KBP bureau, using the fighting compartment of the Russian BMP-3 armoured infantry fighting vehicle as the starting point. The Kurgan machine-building plant was involved in the development of the rest of the vehicle, as well as the launch of its mass production. The same is true of the Chinese ZBD-03 airborne fighting vehicle.

China’s latest artillery systems are licensed and slightly modified versions of Russian designs - and even the modifications themselves were probably made by Russian designers. That includes the fighting compartment of the 155 mm PLZ-05 self-propelled howitzer (a version of the Russian 2S19M1 Msta-S), the 120mm PLL-05 self-propelled gun-mortar (2S23 Nona-SVK), and PHL-05, a 300mm MLRS based on the Russian 9K58 Smerch system. China has also licensed the Krasnopol guided artillery projectiles, the Basnya, Refleks-M and Bastion tank-launched anti-tank guided missile systems, and the RPO-A rocket infantry flame-thrower.

And the latest Chinese powered chassis are obvious licensed clones of the MAZ chassis. Another area of Russian involvement worth a separate mention is the development of the latest Chinese SAM systems. Until recently China was hopelessly stuck with the archaic S-75’s (SA-2) dating back to the Francis Gary Powers era. Since 1996, China has bought 28 battalions of the S-300PMU1/2 SAM (SA-20) SAM systems. What is more, it has also developed its own version of the Russian system, the HQ-9, with the help of the Russian Almaz-Antey group - although the Chinese are still having trouble launching mass production. The HQ-16 and HQ-17 systems also appear to be Russian designs, to all intents and purposes. China has also relied on Russian assistance in developing its short-range SAM systems (in addition to buying the Russian Tor SAMs) and radar stations.

In airborne weapons, China became the main importer of Russian air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles. It has also launched joint production of the Kh-31P/KR-1 (AS-17) anti-radar missiles (essentially those are just being assembled in China). And Russia’s MNPO Agat has developed an active radar homing seeker for the latest Chinese PL-12 air-to-air missile. The developers of the latest Chinese airborne and ground-based cruise missiles are also believed to have made use of Russian assistance, as well as of some related technologies and the Kh-55 (AS-15) cruise missiles bought from Ukraine.

Russia is known to have been heavily involved in the development and fine-tuning of the J-10 and FC-1 fighters. Russia’s Yakovlev bureau took part in the development of the new Chinese L-15 training jet, which appears to be a clone of the Yak-130.

The Chinese Navy has also made a colossal leap forward thanks to the acquisition of Russian arms and technology. It has bought a number of weapons and radar systems for its destroyers and frigates, such as the Rif-M (SA-N-20) and Shtil-1 (SA-N-12) SAM systems (the later includes a vertical launch version). The Chinese-built Type 051C and 052B destroyers, for which those systems have been bought, were themselves designed with the participation of Russia’s Severnoye bureau. The same bureau appears to have contributed to the design of the Chinese Type 052C fleet destroyers and Type 054 frigates, while the Rubin bureau was involved in designing the new Chinese subs. In the 1990s, Russia sold China the full set of designs and documentation for the Varyag heavy aircraft carrier cruiser. And the Nevskoye bureau has actually designed an entire medium-size aircraft carrier for the Chinese, which fact it announced with little fanfare in its annual report last year. China has also licensed the Russian 76 mm AK-176 naval artillery systems, and Russian companies have been developing torpedoes and mines for the Chinese Navy.

It is therefore clear that Russia has been the main engine of the Chinese army’s technological transformation, which fact has not escaped the attention of the experts who watched the October 1 parade. At least 12 of the key weapons systems put on display on Tiananmen Square that day have either Soviet or Russian origins. Russia has been both the main weapons supplier and the key weapons design bureau for China over the past decade and a half.

Trying to stand on its own two feet

In the past few years, however, it has become quite obvious that defense industry cooperation between Russia and China is on the decline. In the 1990s, China was the main importer of Russian weapons, accounting for up to half of Russian arms exports in 2004-2005. By 2007, that figure had shrunk to just 25 per cent. The projection for 2008-2010 is a mere 12-17 per cent. China has almost stopped buying complete weapons platforms from Russia. It is now interested only in components, subsystems, engines, and technical expertise. Once the final deliveries are made in 2010 under the S-300PMU2 contract, exports to China can be expected to shrink even further. Beijing has also chosen not to continue the licensed assembly of the Su-27 fighter jets.

China appears to have acquired all the technology it wanted from Russia, and its strategy now is to develop its own weapons systems based on this know-how. On the other hand, Russia has obviously been careful not to sell China its very latest weapons. Interestingly, some of these weapons Moscow has been prepared to sell to India, but not to China. Essentially, Russian-Chinese defense industry cooperation has hit a glass ceiling.

What is more, the Chinese actually believe now that in many areas their technology is sufficiently advanced to do away with Russian assistance. That has resulted in blatant attempts to clone some Russian weapons rather than license them. The most notorious example is China’s “indigenous” J-11B fighter jet made in Shenyang, which is actually nothing more than a pirated copy of the Su-27 jet previously assembled there from Russian kit.

However, this particular “achievement” has actually put in stark relief the limitations of China’s defense industry. Only a few samples of the J-11B appear to have been built to date. China’s attempts to end its dependence on Russia for jet engines also remain fruitless. The powerful indigenous WS10A turbofan engine, which was designed to replace the Russian AL-31F on both the J-10 and J-11B fighters (and which could itself be a partial clone of the AL-31F), is still struggling with teething problems. All this is forcing Beijing to swallow its pride and keep signing contracts for new shipments of the AL-31FN engines for its latest prime fighter, the J-10.

It would appear that by remaining the sole source of some key components, Russia is keeping its finger on the pulse (or its hand on the tap if you like) of a whole number of crucially important Chinese weapons programs. And many of the latest “indigenous” or licensed Chinese weapons systems still rely on Russian supplies. China’s ability to launch indigenous mass production looks especially uncertain where it comes to a number of modern missile systems, and SAMs in particular.

Careful study of China’s military capability and its latest weapons systems also leads to a number of other conclusions, which the Chinese would doubtless prefer not to hear. One obvious problem is the poor functionality and design of some of the Chinese weapons systems, which look half-finished. Another is the uninspired imitation of foreign designs, which points to a deficit of independent ideas in technology, strategy and tactics of warfare. There are gaping holes in some important areas of Chinese military capability. The air defenses of the parts of the country not covered by the Russian-made S-300PMU1/2 systems are a joke. Battlefield air defense also remains woefully inadequate. The anti-tank capability is rudimentary, and the country has no combat helicopters whatsoever; the Z-10 attack helicopter project is languishing because there is no indigenous engine it could make use of. The strike potential of the Chinese Air Force remains very limited, and the bulk of its fleet is made of the 1960s designs. The Chinese navy’s ability to defend against modern submarines is rated as very low, and on many important indicators that navy itself is nothing more than a coastguard fleet.

Finally, the bulk of the Army’s equipment remains obsolete. The handful of new vehicles of each type trotted out in front of Mao’s mausoleum do not change the bigger picture. Fewer than 300-350 of the latest Type 99 main battle tank have been built over the past decade. In order to be able to replace the ancient T-59’s, which still make up the bulk of the fleet, China has been forced to maintain production of the cheap, simplified and painfully obsolete Type 96. This kind of approach - i.e. producing a few modern-looking showcase pieces while the bulk of the output is made up of spruced-up old junk - exemplifies the current state of affairs in China’s defense industry. Even the Chengdu facility, which builds the latest J-10 fighters, also continues to churn out the J-7G model, a slightly updated version of the venerable MiG-21.

Meanwhile, the Type 99 tank is a fine example of the true level of Chinese military technology. It traces its lineage to Type 90, which is itself a heavily upgraded clone of the old T-72. Chinese military web sites and forums, as well as some Western observers who take all the patriotic verbiage at face value, sing the praises of Type 99. They describe it as world-class; some even go as far as to suggest that it outclasses the Russian T-90A.

The truth is, the armor system of the latest and greatest Chinese tank’s turret looks nothing short of ugly. Due to poor design choices, the thickness of the armor at the 30-35 degrees angle is a mere 350mm, whereas the figure for the latest Soviet/Russian tanks is about 600mm from all angles. Roof armor at the front is also weak, and the tank has inherited the weakness of the porthole and hatch areas from the old Soviet designs. The dimensions of the Type 99 turret make any substantial improvements in its built-in protection system all but impossible - witness the latest modification, Type 99A1. Meanwhile, the decision to use the powerful but bulky German MTU diesel engine forced the Chinese designers to add an extra meter to the tank’s length, bringing its weight to 54 metric tons despite the sacrifices made in armor strength. (Besides, the use of imported engines - or their assembly from imported components - seems to be the key reason why so few of the Type 99’s have been built so far.) So compared to the latest Russian designs, Type 99 is a bulkier tank with weaker armor, handicapped by poor engineering. The Chinese rely too much on superficial mechanical copying of individual design elements, which often do not fit together very well. This copying does not translate into any advantages compared to the original foreign designs, and in many cases leads to unexpected problems. Compared to the vast experience of Soviet/Russian tank designers, the Chinese are only making their first steps - and it really shows.

Finally, a few words about China’s nuclear potential. For all the achievements of China’s defense industry, the country remains a clear outsider among the five official nuclear powers in terms of its strategic nuclear capability. Beijing has no more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and about 120 intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The number of the new DF-31A (CSS-9) solid-fuel ICBMs manufactured each year is in the low single digits. China has only one Type 092 SSBN carrying 12 aged ballistic missiles of the JL-1 type. The sub has never been at sea on active duty. There are also the two recently completed Type 094 SSBN subs, but the JL-2 missiles they are supposed to carry are still in development. That means that the Chinese nuclear arsenal does not have a combat-effective sea-based component. The Chinese Air Force, meanwhile, does not have a strategic bomber. It has to make do with the H-6 (up to 100 units), a clone of the antiquated Soviet Tu-16 long-range bomber. Some of these aircraft are now being fitted with the DH-10 cruise missiles. That could make them a more powerful instrument - but they would still be a far cry from a proper strategic bomber.

China’s program of developing a new generation of strategic nuclear missiles has evidently hit some serious problems. Meanwhile, the existing arsenal, due to the limitations of its underlying technology, has insufficient potential and low combat-readiness. It is also highly vulnerable to a nuclear strike by the United States or Russia. That means that the Chinese nuclear arsenal is not fit for the purpose of either effective first strike or retaliation (since it would hardly survive the first strike against itself). And if the United States deploys even a limited ABM system, the utility of the Chinese nuclear deterrent will diminish even further.

The Chinese leadership (including the defense industry captains) as well as the ordinary Chinese seem to be unreasonably euphoric about their country’s touted advances in military strength. Mesmerized by the brightly painted ranks of their new tanks and missiles, the Chinese flag-wavers tend to ignore the fact that their country’s military technology achievements are fragile, tentative and scant. And most importantly, these achievements are primarily based on Soviet and Russian imports rather than indigenous technology. China has succeeded in importing a wide range of military know-how from Russia - but it is far from certain that the Chinese defense industry will actually manage to absorb all that know-how. There are questions even about China’s ability simply to replicate the technology is has already bought. The current strategy of scaling down defense industry cooperation with Russia could yet come back to haunt China, revealing the decrepitude behind its army’s high-tech veneer. And then Beijing will have to turn to its northern neighbor for help once again.