China used India-Pakistan conflict to conduct ‘first real-world’ test of its weapons

3 comments

1. What would the implications be if it is confirmed that a Rafale was indeed shot down?

2. What else would you expect the Chinese to do? Using fake social media accounts to spread lies and sell their low quality products is pretty much Chinese national economic development strategy

3. As far as weapons sales go this is not too surprising. Russia used to be the relatively low cost provider of OK weapons to any country willing to buy. Russia has stopped delivering weapons since Ukraine. But those countries that wanted to buy those weapons still wanted weapons and can’t wait on the Russians to start delivering again in maybe 4-5 years at best. I long expected just this situation was going to have China become the lower cost, roughly as good a Russian weapons, supplier to all those countries, except India of course. Importantly these countries buying these weapons do so due to cost and not because they are the best in the world, but are at least modern enough for their purposes. And I do expect from here on out China will replace Russia as the weapons supplier that will sell to anybody if they got the money. That does not mean their weapons are on par with the west, they are not. But for those countries that bought Russian weapons the concern the be as good as say the U.S. weapons really isn’t a factor, just that they wanted more modern weapons for their local needs. Russian SAM’s were good enough for most. Good as a Patriot? Not at all. But they do work as SAM’s good enough in the rest of the world. The Chinese jets and SAM’s are good enough for these countries too. Anyway this is not an endorsement of the quality of Chinese weapons, they are modern but not worlds best, roughly as good as Russian weapons.

   But geopolitically this is a big deal. Russia used foreign sales to help fund developing next gen weapons, otherwise Russia would have to take on the entire expense itself just to make these for itself. Very very expensive. I predict they will lose this and their ability to afford developing more advanced weapons, or at a minimum it will extract a big cost from the budget to do so. China will take their place as the low cost supplier, with India being a player too. Since Russia is not delivering weapons and is unlikely to do so for several years, once that change is made it is probably permanent. The countries buying incur a cost in changing weapons system. They have no choice but to incur that cost because they still need weapons now and can’t get them for Russia. Once they make the switch to China, they would have to incur that some cost to return to Russian weapons later. From this I think Russia will not be a major arms supplier from here on. Yes they will sell some weapons but for the costly ones that helped fund the R&D they will not be a major player. China will replace them.

   India which was a big buyer of Russian weapons will not buy from China, and it is already clear they are turning to western weapon manufacturers. If I recall India will be buying French Rafale fighters at least for carriers, and have already purchased non carrier jets. They are looking at Gripens from Sweden, and even talk of buying F-35’s although that seems unlikely, but not totally ruled out. I believe they are going mostly with the French weapons. Of course India has been working on indigenous jets like the Tejas as well. If that goes well maybe they will increasingly buy domestically but clearly they are going for top of the line with European weapons as well. Sort of like a “high low” fighter and fighter bomber fleet, which by the way the U.S. does too. Interestingly India is selling Tejas internationally and Armenia has an order, wtih interest from Brazil, Philippines and Malaysia and others. These are not purely indigenous weapons as the are using GE engine and Israeli components and software. Which might mean India could be another low cost weapons supplier. But China appears to have a first mover advantage over India with their jets in production and India lagging behind. In any event India could be another low cost supplier, perhaps not as big as China, but China may not get a lock on that whole low cost market. And the countries reluctant to buy from China may buy from India, so they may be a player. Not familiar with how good the Tejas latest iterations are though to compare to other systems. But for poorer countries good enough is often fine for their purposes. India is already selling Brahman missiles to the Philippines if I recall. So they are increasingly a player in some areas. All of this is to say that Russian weapons sales have declined due the war which is ongoing and Russia will need to produce weapons to replace their own giving China and India an opportunity to take that market which hurts Russia a lot. Russia also used their weapons sales as influence in the countries dependent which they will lose. Thus Russia is going to have a hard time funding their R&D for their own weapons with these sales and it is very expensive to develop these weapons. Apparently the Russian Su-57 collaboration with India failed to impress, which is not surprising as it really is not a 5th gen fighter, more like 4.5 gen. I believe that collaboration is on hold or stopped if I recall. How much China vs India capture hard to say, but I suspect China will have a larger share, how large hard to tell. All in all another strategic blunder of Russia due to Ukraine war, one that will probably be a permanent change.

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