STOCKHOLM, Jan 27, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The opaque Chinese arms industry has
made the Asian nation the world’s second largest producer of munitions, a
clear shift from a decade ago when China relied on imports, researchers said
in a new report Monday.
The report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
suggests that China’s weapons production, which has previously been shrouded
in mystery owing to a lack of transparency, has grown as three of the world’s
top 10 arms companies are Chinese.
“We can with confidence say that China is the second largest arms producer
in the world, behind the US and ahead of Russia,” Nan Tian, co-author of the
report, told AFP.
The report notes however that the lack of transparency remains an
“important caveat” when studying the Chinese arms industry.
The vast majority of the estimated $70-$80 billion (63 to 72 billion
euros) worth of Chinese munitions sold every year are bought by the different
branches of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
This still represents a dramatic shift over the last 10 years as China in
the past was a big importer of weapons from Russia and Ukraine.
“They no longer need to rely on other countries for their weapons,” Tian
said.
Chinese arms companies are also much more specialised than their
international counterparts.
Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the country’s largest arms
company, for instance, mostly produces aircraft and avionics, while most
large non-Chinese producers cover a wide range of military products.
– ‘Reasonably reliable estimates’ –
SIPRI researchers have previously struggled to obtain reliable data on the
size of the Chinese arms industry, since the producers are all state-owned
entities.
“Everything is locked under the term national security,” Tian said.
In the report the researchers have looked into four specific Chinese
companies, all of which rank among the world’s top 20, and say that with an
increase in the available data on these companies “it is now possible to
develop reasonably reliable estimates of the scale of the Chinese arms
industry.”
Though there are no official statistics on Chinese arms exports available,
the report notes that the Chinese arms “industry has developed to a point
where there is an increased demand for its weapons overseas,” and estimates
place China as the world’s fifth largest weapons exporter, SIPRI said.
In particular Tian said that one of China’s success stories as a weapons
exporter has been in the area of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly
known as drones, which have been used in conflicts in both Libya and Yemen.
More arms exports increases the risk of weapons proliferation, but China’s
entry to the world stage of weaponry sales is of special concern to the
researchers since Beijing has not signed on to many of the arms control
regulations that exist, including the Arms Trade Treaty approved by the UN
General Assembly in 2013.
“There is no binding system that can hold China and these exporters
accountable,” Tian said.