STRENGTH THROUGH COOPERATION
         Military Forces in the  Asia-Pacific Region

PART III  
Strategy of Conflict  

CHINESE MILITARY PURCHASES FROM RUSSIA :  A Relative Evaluation
      Dennis J. Blasko  

Introduction

The Chinese military is in the process of a long-term modernization program.  Uniformed and civilian leaders in Beijing have studied recent conflicts, analyzed Chinese shortfalls, and identified improvements that must be made in their forces, doctrine, and equipment.  The Chinese military leadership is well aware of the gap in modern military capabilities that exists between the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and modern, late 20th-century militaries, most notably the U.S. Armed Forces.

The majority of foreign analyses concerning the existing and potential Chinese military threat emphasize recent equipment purchases from Russia and the trends these purchases portend.  This article reviews those acquisitions and compares them to a previously established regional threat.  The implications of this comparison point to conclusions about the state of Chinese military modernization that differ from the prevailing opinion commonly found in the popular media.

Lieutenant Colonel Dennis J. Blasko, U.S. Army (Ret.), served his last assignment at the War Gaming and Simulation Center at the National Defense University.  Previously, he served as a U.S. Army attaché in Beijing and Hong Kong from 1992-96 and in infantry units in Germany, Italy, and Korea, as well as at Headquarters, Department of the Army, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. 

Some observers have characterized the Chinese approach toward Russian military equipment sales as buyers at a fire sale.¹  Russian arms merchants have introduced Chinese military leaders to a variety of hardware that could greatly improve existing PLA capabilities.  Elements of the defense industries in both countries have established relationships with their counterpart organizations.  Over the past 5 years, reports of negotiations for many advanced systems and technologies have been widespread, but generally vague and sometimes exaggerated. Many reported deals have not been consummated.²  Actual equipment purchases and technology transfers have been relatively limited because Chinese appetites are constrained by limited financial resources dedicated to the military and by Russian strategic suspicions.

Notwithstanding their need for hard currency, Moscow still has not sold China complete weapons systems that can strike at the Russian heartland.  Military planners in the Kremlin maintain a watchful eye on Chinese military modernization and provide their civilian leaders cautious advice about arms sales to China.  However, some limited transfer of strategic technology is likely to have occurred whether sanctioned by the Russian leadership or not.  Moreover, danger continues from rogue traders, not only from Russia but other former Soviet states, who traffic in strategic systems and technology in pursuit of personal financial gain.  In a similar manner, Russian scientists and technicians no longer fully employed by the industries that produced weapons for the former Soviet forces may look to China as a lucrative opportunity for their own private employment.  

Although Beijing has accumulated vast quantities of foreign exchange reserves, the senior Chinese leadership has not yet made the decision to divert sufficient resources from civilian economic development to fund large-scale military equipment purchases adequately.  For example, government expenditures on culture, health, education, and the civilian development of science and technology have outpaced the official figures for defense expenditures in the past decade.³  It would take huge sums of money to acquire the equipment and technology from across almost the entire spectrum of modern military systems to transform the existing Chinese force (using equipment primarily based on technology of the 1950s and 1960s) to one using military technology of the 1980s.

As a partial effort gradually to improve technological standards in the PLA, Beijing has authorized the purchase of modest amounts of conventional Russian military equipment.  Foreign observers generally agree that these purchases have been made with funds provided by the central government or through barter agreements and are not included in the official, announced military budget.⁴  

Recent Acquisitions of Modern Equipment

Listed below are the numbers and types of modern Russian military hardware generally accepted to have been transferred to China since the early 1990s.⁵  

Mi-17 helicopters                                                     24  
SU-27 fighters                                      about 50 (includes AA-8 and AA-10 missiles)⁶  
SA-10 SAM                                         100 with four launch systems  
IL-76 transport aircraft                                             10  
Kilo submarines                                   2 (2 more to be delivered; additional transfers possible)
RD-33 aircraft engine                          100 (for Super-7 fighters)  

An article in The Washington Times in early 1997 also described the impending transfer of two Sovremenny-class destroyers with SS-N-22 antiship cruise missiles.⁷  Later reporting indicated that the two ships are being built at St. Petersburg with the goal of transfer to China by the end of 1997.⁸  Other reporting from Moscow and Washington points to discussions about new purchases of ground force equipment, including BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, advanced artillery systems, multiple rocket launchers, and air defense systems.⁹  Many details of these potential transfers, such as delivery schedules, are unclear. Moreover, there may be problems about pricing that need to be resolved before any transfers are made.  

The total cost of these purchases is uncertain.  Prior to the deal for the Sovremenny destroyers, Gill and Kim estimated that figures for 1991-94 to be $4.5-6 billion.¹⁰  The newspaper report of the potential Sovremenny transfer quoted Pentagon sources who said the cost of these ships and several other Russian systems was between $8 and 10 billion over several years.¹¹  If either of these estimates was to be prorated over the multiyear period during which the equipment transfers would take place, it is possible that the announced Chinese defense budget would be augmented by $1 to $2 billion annually.  For the sake of comparison, in the single year 1995, the U.S. Department of Defense procured more than $43 billion of equipment, with Lockheed Martin alone accounting for over $10 billion.¹²  

Analysis of these Purchases

The list of actual deliveries and the potential Sovremenny transfer yield valuable insights into the actual state of Chinese military modernization and the Chinese defense industry.  First, the types of equipment purchased indicate the trends in force development the Chinese are pursuing.  Naval and air force modernization has priority.  These systems will begin to provide some of the capabilities needed to fight the type of conflict that Chinese strategic planners envision as most likely in the future- short, limited wars using high-technology equipment on the periphery of China.  In order to fight this type of war, the PLA will need to develop the capability to project and sustain a joint, combined arms force some distance from its borders.  At present, the PLA is not structured to do so, but is best suited to fight a defensive war on its own land mass and in its coastal waters.

In spite of numerous allegations, the transfer of strategic long-range bombers and ICBMs has not been verified.  While seeking to improve its strategic capability in cost-effective ways, Beijing appears to believe that the existing PLA nuclear arsenal generally provides an adequate level of strategic deterrence.¹³

As mentioned earlier, although there have been reports of new sales of ground force weapons systems, anticipated transfer of any significant numbers of ground force equipment has yet to come to fruition (except for the Mi-17 helicopters).¹⁴  This may be because China faces no significant land threat and calculates that the amount of equipment necessary to outfit its ground forces would be cost prohibitive as well as unnecessary.  This reasoning allows for money to be better spent on those weapons more likely to be needed in potential future conflicts and found in navy, air force, and missile units.

Second, what do the numbers say?  The amount of equipment purchased from Russia confirms the selective modernization of a few units throughout the Chinese military.  Only enough equipment has been purchased to equip a few units scattered among the forces.  Selective modernization has been demonstrated by the priority given to the development of a limited number of rapid reaction units, rather than improving the entire force.  The Chinese military is simply too big and too bogged down with equipment designed and produced decades ago to be fully equipped with modern hardware.  Further reductions in both personnel and force structure will be imperative as the PLA modernizes.  

Comparison with Former Soviet Forces in the Far East

Most commentators would agree that, even in its final years, the military forces of the Soviet Union were a significant threat.  Soviet conventional forces were divided into three theaters of operations:  the western, southern, and far eastern theaters.  For the purpose of this analysis, only Far Eastern Theater and strategic forces will be considered.  Furthermore, this comparison will address only the types of equipment recently transferred from Russia or equipment manufactured by Chinese defense industries that can be considered to approach modern standards.  

Fourth generation                                    about 670²³                        about 50

Fighter aircraft IL-76 strategic lift aircraft                   297²⁴                                    10

Army helicopters                                                       875                                       86²⁵

Tanks                                                                   13,500                                        0²⁶  

Implications of these Numbers on Chinese Forces  
Perhaps the most significant implication of the relatively small-scale introduction of modern military equipment into the PLA is that only a limited portion of the officer corps and enlisted force has routine, hands-on experience in operating and maintaining truly modern equipment.  Often, the presence of much of this equipment on the training field is restricted to demonstration and experimentation.  Eventually new systems must be integrated into old methods of operations and new tactics and procedures devised.  These changes will not take place overnight.

Until more airmen, sailors, and soldiers actually have the chance to use modern equipment for a long enough period of time to become familiar with the new capabilities and complexities of the systems, it is likely that the equipment will not be employed to its maximum designed potential.  Fear of loss or damage to an expensive piece of hardware probably will result in a very conservative approach to its use in training.

Further complicating the task facing the Chinese military leadership is the reality that, except for internal security operations, nearly a generation of PLA officers have no combat experience.²⁷  In particular, they have no experience in planning for or actually using modern weapons in combat.  Nor have they felt the effects of modern weapons used against them.  Because of the lengths of conscription, no serving PLA enlisted soldiers have had combat experience either.

The relatively low level of education and technical sophistication found in the force hampers rapid modernization.  Although the PLA is engaged in a major educational campaign to teach its personnel about the capabilities of modern high-technology equipment, until such equipment is more readily available throughout the force, most officers and men for many years to come will have only academic exposure to modern weapons and their application on a high-technology battlefield.  Therefore, it will be difficult to develop and disseminate doctrine, tactics, and techniques for the employment of any modern weapons that may enter the force.  These software challenges will take as long or longer to overcome than the more readily visible hardware shortfalls.  

Implications Concerning the Chinese Defense Industries

If foreign arms purchases have produced a force of only relatively modest modern capability, what is the potential for the Chinese defense industries to produce high-technology equipment on their own?  Although China is credited with having a comprehensive defense industrial base that can produce the entire spectrum of weapons of war (with a few notable exceptions), it is not producing weapons that meet the standards of the late 20th-century battlefield.  Except for a few pockets of excellence, there are tremendous shortfalls in Chinese military production capabilities.  As examples of their success, the Chinese defense industries have indigenously designed, developed, produced, and fielded limited numbers of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, as well as some world-class electronics and a few frigates and destroyers.

However, today the majority of military production is engaged in the upgrade of foreign weapons systems based on pre-1970s technology and manufacturing techniques.  For example, the J-7, a modified Soviet Mig-21 (first designed in the 1950s), still is the fighter aircraft produced in largest numbers in China.²⁸   In the 1990s, this aircraft is replacing the older J-6, the Chinese version of the Mig-19.²⁹  In the Soviet Union, the Mig-21 was replaced in the 1980s by the generation of aircraft represented by the SU-27.  

For more than a decade there has been talk of Chinese efforts to produce an F-16-equivalent aircraft.  When and if this plane is ever produced, and in what quantity, remain open to speculation.  For 10 years the Chinese also have attempted to design a modern main battle tank up to the standards of the Soviet T-72.  Cooperative efforts on this project with Pakistan have proven less than satisfactory, and no new tank for the Chinese ground forces can be expected any time soon from its own defense industry.

The decision to purchase the Sovremenny destroyers from Russia indicates the depth of problems facing the Chinese defense industry.  The Luhu destroyer is one of the few systems that begins to approach modern standards, yet Beijing has evidently decided to buy from Moscow ships of the same class that perform the same functions.  Similar thinking was demonstrated in the purchase of SU-27 aircraft when the defense industry had been attempting for years to produce an aircraft to perform identical functions with roughly equivalent technology.  These decisions reflect the lack of confidence that military planners have in their own defense industry.

It is unlikely that China's defense industries can surmount these problems without massive input of resources from the central government and the expensive acquisition of considerably more technology and production assistance from foreign sources.  Manufacturing equipment and techniques currently in use on most existing lines are inadequate to meet the quality and precision standards demanded by modern military equipment.  Rates of production are too low, even at existing technological levels, to allow for a rapid buildup of modern equipment.  It would not be an overstatement to say that in order to produce even a portion of the spectrum of modern military equipment, with few exceptions, each of the Chinese defense industries would need a nearly total recapitalization of its production lines.

The following compares Frankenstein and Gill's estimates of yearly production levels for selected Chinese weapons systems with production estimates for Soviet defense industries from the late 1980s.  As is easily seen, Chinese production rates of less sophisticated equipment are much lower than previous Soviet rates.

Weapons System                                                 Soviet                               Chinese

Principal Surface Combatants                                   9                                          3-4  
Attack Submarines                                                   8                                             1
Fighter Aircraft                                                     633                                           80 ³⁰ 

The problem of low rates of production is compounded by China's efforts in the conversion of defense production and technology to civilian use.  For several years, official statements claim that 80 percent of production value of the defense industries is civilian goods or services.³¹  As stated earlier, the majority of the remaining 20 percent of military production results in systems that do not meet late 20th-century standards.  Nor does China's defense industrial base appear to have a workable plan to surge production in time of emergency.³²

The decrease in Chinese arms sales in the 1990s is another indication of the problem facing China's defense industries.  Given the choice, foreign purchasers have selected Western or Russian arms over Chinese in the past 6 or 7 years.³³  In today's arms market, the low price of most Chinese weapons is not enough of a bargain to overcome their lack of sophistication.  Many recent sales were made more for the buyers' political purposes than their military effectiveness.  In the end, most foreign buyers have been dissatisfied with Chinese weapons.  

Internal Chinese Constraints and Strategic Implications

Of course, the Chinese leadership is aware of this situation.  Yet, they have refrained from diverting the amount of investment necessary to change significantly the existing distribution of resources within the country.  Beijing analysts justify this strategic decision by using the fall of the Soviet Union as an example:  the disproportionate amount that Moscow spent on the Soviet military instead of on the civilian economy is considered a primary reason for its eventual demise.

The U.S. CIA estimates that the Soviet Union dedicated 15 to 17 percent of its GDP to defense for much of the 1980s.³⁴  This percentage is far above most estimates of present levels of Chinese defense spending even after adjusting for extrabudgetary sources of income.³⁵ Official Chinese announcements put defense spending at about 1.5 percent of the GDP; even if that number is tripled to account for extrabudgetary sources of funds, it still would account for only about 5 percent of the GDP.³⁶  The Soviet figure demonstrates the order of magnitude difference in resources that China would have to divert if the leadership were to decide that military modernization needed to be speeded up.  The results of such a decision would quickly be evident to the world and, by itself, not necessarily guarantee the creation of a modern force.

Chinese military modernization faces severe constraints.  If it tries to overcome its shortcomings too quickly, Beijing could easily bankrupt the nation's resources and cause severe reactions from governments throughout the region and the world.  However, if the PLA does not take significant steps to improve its modern combat capability, China cannot be confident of protecting its sovereignty against what Beijing considers to be real threats.  Without a credible military force, China will not achieve its goal of becoming a regional power or, eventually, a global one.

Having analyzed the problem within the context of the existing international and domestic environments, the civilian and military leadership agrees that the present long-term program of gradual defense modernization is appropriate for the time being and will not jeopardize the growth of the civilian economy.  However, counter to the prevailing trend in most of the rest of the world, the Chinese leadership appears compelled to continue to increase defense spending.  Still, increases of three to five times more than adjusted estimates, which would put China on a spending level equivalent to the USSR in the mid-1980s, do not appear to be on the horizon.

At the same time, the Chinese military will take advantage of a relatively peaceful regional security environment to continue to modernize its training, doctrine, and education levels, as the sophistication of equipment in its inventory slowly improves.  The PLA will seek to avoid extended combat if possible, preferring to posture and use threats that fall short of the actual application of deadly force.  As seen from the military exercises and demonstrations opposite Taiwan in the summer of 1995 and March 1996, China will also attempt to emphasize its limited high-technology weaponry, ballistic and cruise missiles in particular, to portray itself as a military power with more modern capabilities than actually exist.  

If force must be used to protect its claims to sovereignty, rapid efforts maximizing surprise will be attempted.  For the foreseeable future, because of its relative weakness, the technological and equipment factors discussed above indicate that Beijing is more likely to rely on stratagem and bluff than brute force to achieve its military goals against a more modern opponent.  

Conclusions

Relatively speaking, in terms of conventional, modern military hardware, the PLA currently has approximately one-tenth the capability of the forces deployed in the Far Eastern Theater by the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s.  Though there are a few pockets of excellence within existing forces, the PLA has only begun a long process of equipment modernization.  It still faces doctrinal development and the task of educating and training its personnel in modern techniques.  The actual integration of new high-technology weapons systems on the training field, to include the use of modern communications, intelligence, and logistics systems, is a major endeavor that has been underway for only a short period of time and only by a portion of the total force.

Without massive foreign assistance, the Chinese defense industry currently can produce, at best, equipment with technological levels equivalent only to that which the Soviet Union replaced in the 1980s.  The majority of today's Chinese defense industries will have to be retooled and personnel taught new techniques to produce significant numbers of more modern equipment.  Therefore, it is probable that the most modern military equipment introduced into Chinese units in the nearterm and midterm will be of foreign origin.

The costs of equipping the entire PLA with modern equipment and revamping the defense industries would be enormous.  The international strategic situation, however, does not require China to make major changes in its allocation of resources between the civilian and military sectors at this time.  In any case, in the next few years, it is likely that the PLA will both be reduced in size and its budget increased by modest percentages.  These actions will allow it to continue equipment modernization in selected units and improve the general level of training and education throughout the remaining force.

While the current pace of Chinese military modernization will not pose a significant threat to modern militaries for some time to come, clearly its smaller regional neighbors already are wary of Beijing's intentions and potential capabilities.  No matter what the foreign perception, however, for the purpose of its own prestige and in the pursuit of its foreign policy objectives, China will seek to have a visible, standing force capable of deterring war and intimidating potential opponents.

Beijing recognizes its current and projected military weaknesses and will, therefore, seek to avoid prolonged conflict instead of initiating it.  By eschewing the actual use of deadly force, China is more likely to reap the benefits of economic development and international integration than would result from an arbitrary, and risky, display of power.  Because no imminent major military threat exists, China does not need to overcome the deficiencies in its conventional military capabilities in the near term and midterm.  Rather, the PLA is more likely to focus on improving its existing proven pockets of excellence-for example, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and nuclear weapons.  While gradual improvements in these systems are to be expected, great advances in these capabilities are unlikely to be achieved soon.  

At the same time, China will attempt to exploit the intellectual efforts of a few of its finest scientists, using advanced computers, electronics, and applied technology, to discover methods to equalize a future potential battlefield through the relatively inexpensive means of information or electronic warfare.  The main emphasis of Chinese defense industrial research and development work will focus on advanced research as well as dual-use and critical technologies.³⁷  These efforts can be considered economy of force measures adopted when it is impossible for China to match dollar for dollar other nations' spending on conventional armaments.  Accordingly, observers who focus on arms purchases from Russia, production of weapons systems with 1980s technology, or the development of conventional rapid-reaction or blue-water naval capabilities will probably miss the more likely, and potentially more dangerous, dimensions of Chinese military achievements in the 21st century.  

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Notes  

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