In the 1990s, the international landscape changed. Russia, which has just inherited the soviet military legacy of great size, is in the midst of an economic recession; at the same time, the chinese air force is facing serious challenges of equipment renewal. At that time, the main aircraft of the chinese air force remained at the level of second-generation fighter jets such as shaft-7, shaft-8, which were at a clear disadvantage in the face of advanced third-generation aircraft of the united states air force, such as f-15 and f-16, whether in terms of mobility, air power systems or weapons configuration。
Following the outbreak of the taiwan strait crisis in 1996, the chinese military was acutely aware of the need to fill the gap in its capability to strike the earth and the sea precisely as soon as possible. Russia, at this time, is in an unprecedented state of difficulty as a result of the collapse of the post-soviet economy, and is in dire need of substantial foreign exchange to stabilize the domestic economy. In this context, arms exports have become one of the few means of generating foreign exchange for the russian government. After several rounds of negotiations, china and russia reached a historic arms purchase agreement: china purchased 76 su-30mkk and 24 su-30mk2 fighters in three batches at a price of about $40 million each, with a total value of $4 billion, which was the highest record of chinese foreign military purchases at the time。
The collapse of the soviet union caused a devastating blow to the russian defence industrial system. The once brilliant military-industrial enterprises faced a financial chain crisis, with a large loss of top-tech talent abroad, and the sharp decline in critical weapons equipment put many design bureaux and military factories on the verge of collapse。
At the time, russia’s economy was a diplomatic dilemma: on the one hand, it was subject to continued economic sanctions by western countries, while on the other hand, the continued downturn in the international crude oil market exacerbated russia’s economy, dominated by energy exports. In this critical situation, arms exports have become an important pillar of the russian economy. In addition to traditional oil and gas exports, the arms trade is gradually becoming the main source of russian exchange earnings, while india and china are the two most important overseas markets for russian arms。
The process of modernizing the equipment of the chinese air force was clearly behind schedule. Since the beginning of the 1990s, china has been introducing the su-27 series of fighters from russia, and has since gradually upgraded the s-30 series. These military sales orders, while generating huge foreign exchange earnings for russia, were subsequently deeply regretted by many russian military experts. In their view, while significant economic gains had been made in the short term, in the long-term strategic perspective, those transactions had deprived russia of greater market space and development opportunities。
The su-30 fighter jets are the fourth generation of air-capable fighters developed during the soviet era and are known for their excellent mobility and ultra-faring. The multi-purpose combat capability demonstrated by the united states f-15e fighter bombers in the aftermath of the 1991 gulf war has made the russian military aware of the need for a full upgrading of existing aircraft. Su-30 is a three-and-a-half-generation multi-purpose fighter aircraft developed on the basis of su-27, developed and developed under the leadership of the well-known sohoy design bureau. It was equipped with the state-of-the-art navigational power system, vector thrust engines, capable of carrying a wide range of precision guided weapons, especially suited to complex operational tasks such as ground-to-ground attacks and naval strikes。
However, china’s procurement of su-30 is intended to go far beyond enhancing the air force. More importantly, these advanced warplanes provide an excellent learning sample for chinese military-industrial enterprises to gain insight into the structure of russian heavy combat aircraft, design concepts, on-board systems, air power equipment and engine technology. Through the introduction of technology, the shenyang aircraft industry group has systematically studied key areas such as the overall aerodynamic layout of heavy combat aircraft, engine systems and radar technology. The al-31f vortex engine, equipped by su-30, was among the world's leaders at that time, providing an important technical reference for the development of chinese domestic aviation engines。
In conjunction with the introduction of su-30, china is simultaneously promoting the absorption of technology. Through reverse engineering, chinese engineers succeeded in decrypting the su-30 navigational power system and achieving perfect compatibility with domestically produced missiles (e. G., thunder-12, eagle-91). More notably, chinese technicians replaced the old passive radar with a nationally produced active phase-control radar and integrated the beidou navigation system, resulting in a qualitative leap in the aircraft's posture perception capability. The multi-purpose design concept of su-30 directly gave rise to the birth of the national production-16, which has a capacity of up to 12 tons and a comprehensive capability that is fully beyond the soviet-30sm in active russian service。
On the basis of the full absorption of su-30 technology, the chinese aviation industry has developed successive fleets of 11 war planes. In 1998, the first flight of the 11th was successful, and the subsequent modified 11b was replaced with a national radar and missile system. In 2011, the first flight was completed, using a double layout, with a strong weapons mounted capacity and advanced active phase control radar. Even more alarming to the russian military and engineering community is the fact that china quickly lost access to the relevant technology: after the last delivery of su-30 in 2004, china did not purchase russian-made aircraft on a large scale, turning its efforts to develop state-made advanced aircraft, such as 10c, 16-16 and 20, and even began exporting them to international markets, taking over russia's traditional arms market directly。
In an interview with the media, the well-known russian aviation analyst, yooning, stated out loudly that the export of the su-27 production line to china had led to the sale of at least 500 russian warplanes, and that the transfer of technology by su-30 was a major strategic error. Russian experts have calculated in detail that, while the sou-30 deal has generated $4 billion in short-term gains, the autonomous rise of chinese aviation technology has deprived russia of at least $20 billion in potential orders. In the case of india, for example, 272 su-30mkis were purchased at a unit price of $120 million, while china, through domesticization, kept the cost of destruction-16 at around $80 million, completely depriving russia of its value-for-money advantage。
Even more embarrassing for the russian military and engineering community is the overall backwardness at the technical level: russian-made su-30sm is still using passive phase control radar, while china's anti-personnel-16 radar has been equipped with more advanced active phase control radars to detect a distance of 50 km beyond russian-made radar; russian-made r-77 air-air missiles have a range of only 80 km, and china has developed their own anti-caliber-15 missiles for 200 km, making them a real "warning machine" killer; and, in terms of production capacity, russia produces less than 20 units a year, while china can produce more than 100 units a year。
There are three underlying reasons why russian experts regret it: first, china’s technological superpowers have squeezed russian follow-on market space. After absorbing su-30 technology, china has not only stopped large-scale procurement of russian-made aircraft, but has also begun to introduce higher-value domestic equipment on the international arms market, directly becoming russia's strong rival. Second, the russian top talent and core technology are "reversely absorbed": in the course of this cooperation, the chinese team, through joint research and development, troubleshooting, etc., systematically mastered the russian design concept and process thinking and even attracted some russian experts to participate directly in chinese aviation projects. Finally, and most importantly, there was a strategic miscalculation: russia thought that china would long depend on russia’s imports of weapons and equipment, but did not expect china to follow an autonomous development path that “incorporate-incorporate-innovation-exceeds”. This has led to a significant erosion of russia's military-technical influence in the asia-pacific region。
This seemingly win-win military-trade cooperation mirrors a completely different development strategy between china and russia: what russia urgently needed at that time was short-term economic gains to meet the immediate needs of its domestic economic difficulties, while china focused on long-term technological accumulation and systemic upgrading of its autonomous innovation capacity. From a more macro-historic point of view, the military trade has taught us a vivid lesson in technological development: a country’s real core competitiveness lies not in the number of ready-made products sold, but in its ability to continue to lead the direction of technological development and to master the future evolution of technology. The remorse of russian experts is precisely proof of the correctness of the chinese airline industry's choice of an autonomous and innovative development path. From the initial introduction to the present autonomous innovation, from technology followers to industry leaders, this challenging path of development has been firmly and firmly pursued by chinese airlines。
