In 1979, Somalia made a trade purchase with the mainland, purchasing 26 J-6 fighter jets on the mainland. However, after enjoying our VIP after-sales service, Somalia has become a "lao lai" and refuses to pay the balance of more than 17 million yuan.
In order to recover this huge balance, the relevant staff of the mainland have traveled to other places many times to fight with Somalia. Why did Somalia buy Chinese warplanes at that time? In the end, how did the mainland recover this huge balance?
Enhance national strength and independently develop fighter jets
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, enhancing national defense strength and enhancing territorial air defense strength has always been the mainland's main task of imminent concern. At that time, the United States developed the YF-100 in 1953 and the Soviet MiG-19 in 1954, and the successful test flight of these two fighters officially marked the international fighter era into the supersonic era.
In 1958, in order to gain China's support internationally, the Soviet Union agreed to use the MiG-19P as a continental imitation model to technically support the mainland in developing fighters.
In December 1958, a fighter jet "Dongfeng 103", which was compiled by the mainland itself and imitated by the mainland's own equipment, was successfully tested, and this fighter was also incorporated into the mainland's air force.
After that, after many improvements and repairs, the new generation of "Dongfeng 103", that is, the renamed "J-6A", has become famous in the world, and the J-6 has shot down 21 fighters of various types in just 4 years of service.
Stable performance, dexterous body, super-sensitive acceleration and extremely fast dive have made the J-6 shine on the international military stage. Gradually, other countries began to order J-6 fighters with the mainland, and this trade method can quickly increase the country's foreign exchange reserves.
Therefore, after the formal production of the J-6 in small quantities in 1977, the mainland sold a total of 780 fighter jets to more than a dozen countries, bringing economic benefits and bitter lessons. For example, I met a rude buyer , Somalia.
Historically Somalia
Ever heard of Somalia?
Most people believe that the answer is yes, Somali pirates, how rampant? It is also because of the heinous acts of international piracy terror that Somalia has succeeded in making the world remember with a negative image.
What does the real Somalia look like?
Located in the northeast corner of Africa, Somalia occupies a geographical location, has the longest coastline in Africa, they enjoy the world's excellent marine resources, and because of the connection between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, this should have given Somalia a good development and future.
Contrary to expectations, the political situation in Somalia in recent history has been turbulent, resulting in its lagging development.
But this was not the case in Somalia a long time ago. In the 17th century BC, Somalia at that time was called the "State of Bonte", which was known as the "Horn of Africa" due to its prominent geographical location. The people here are industrious and produce world-famous spices that once traveled across the sea to reach the Ming Dynasty of China, thousands of miles away.
In the 7th century, the arrival of the Arabs ushered in a brief period of splendor in the land, during which the Horn of Africa established a number of trading ports and a brief feudal empire.
According to historical records, Zheng He once arrived in Somalia, which was then called the "Horn of Africa" during his fifth voyage to the West, and brought back the giraffe that was regarded as a "unicorn" by the Chinese. During this period, Somalia was still a moderate and rich image of the outside world, and foreign relations were well established.
However, the minions of the Western powers did not spare this land.
In 1840, with the forcible opening of the gates of the Qing Empire, Somalia in Africa also faced the fate of being divided. British, French and Italian colonists arbitrarily divided Somalia into their own colonies, and from this year on, Somalia's own development stagnated, and all its resources were plundered by the great powers, a history of nearly a hundred years. Such a blow is fatal to any country, which is one of the important reasons why Somalia has never developed since then.
The Great Powers, apart from plundering and exploiting, do not give Somalia any hope of development, where the population is largely illiterate and the literate make up less than 6 per cent of the population.
After World War II, European colonial powers had to abandon control of Somalia, which was already in tatters.
In 1969, the commander of the Somali National Army, Mohammed Siad Barre, led the Somali people to establish the Somali Democratic Republic through a coup d'état, and the mainland was the first major country in Somalia to resume diplomatic relations after independence.
Somalia is in dire need of fighter jets
As the big socialist brother in the world at that time, the Soviet Union provided Barre with a lot of armed support, and also sent military advisers to live in Somalia for a long time and help Somalia at any time.
Barre is quite dependent on the big brother of the Soviet Union, but how can Barre be a little brother forever? He was ambitious, but he was short of money and weapons.
Mohammed Siad Barre (above, left)
As we all know, the African land has a huge amount of natural energy, but most of the African countries do not have enough technical exploration capabilities, and can only be achieved with the help of advanced science and technology in developed countries in Europe, but the profits in the middle have been sucked away by others.
In 1973, the Swedish Oil Company announced that it had discovered a large amount of oil and gas resources in the Ogaden area, and Barre could not sit still.
Olgadeng was originally From somalia, but was forcibly assigned to Ethiopia during the colonial period. According to the jurisdiction of the region, this originally had nothing to do with Somalia, but the poor changed, and Barre was really too poor at that time, so that he had the heart to be a "bandit and robber".
Ethiopia was in civil strife at the time, the situation was turbulent, the scuffle was in full swing, And Barry thought it was time to strike, and if he joined the melee at this time, the chances of taking back Ogaden were quite high. Barre was also a small combat expert, and in 1979 he led a large force to launch an attack on the Ethiopian army in Ogaden.
Besieged on all sides, Ethiopia was so overwhelmed that it had lost 60 percent of its land before it could figure out why Somalia had gone with itself. Just when Barre could not suppress his happiness, the Ethiopian leadership finally eased up - how could it be beaten by Somalia?
Therefore, Ethiopia also asked the Big Brother of the Soviet Union for help, and also gave a large "consulting fee", why did the Soviet Union not collect this windfall?
In this way, the two African countries, which had been favored by the Soviet Union, fought happily.
With the support of the Soviet Union, Ethiopian artillery fire was even more intense. How could Barre accept such a betrayal by the Soviet Union? As if confronted with a cheating husband, Barre drove all the soviet military advisers out of Somalia overnight.
However, such an approach made the self-esteem of the Soviet big brother hang on, and since the Soviet Union tore its face, it was no longer hidden, so it sent its original military team to Somalia directly to Ethiopia to attack Somalia together.
Faced with such a situation, Barre panicked and hurried to the United States for help. How can the United States resist the desire not to take money? It was only because Somalia was a "robber" that it refused this help.
In this way, Somalia returned home in the Battle of Ogaden, less than half of the fighters previously aided by the Soviet Union remained, and many of them were already scarred, plus Soviet military experts were driven away, the management of the Somali army was chaotic, and Barre had a headache. But an occasional defeat in the war did not bring him down, but led him to sum up a greater theory:
The essence of the United States and the Soviet Union is the same for me, they just want to coax me, get more money and benefits from me, when others are good to them, they will treat others in the same way.
After some comparison, Barre threw an olive branch to the Chinese government. Somalia's eye is the highly cost-effective fighter J-6 that the mainland is producing at that time. Barry carefully calculated the account and thought it was a good investment.
In order to help Somalia build public infrastructure, the mainland has sent excellent scientific and technological talents to help them build factories, roads, hospitals and so on. In 1963, the Somali prime minister visited China and expressed a friendly attitude, and Premier Zhou also paid a diplomatic return visit to Somalia in 1964.
So when Ogaden was defeated by Ethiopia and the Soviet Union, the first person in Somalia to consider seeking help was China. What's more, at that time, the production of the mainland's J-6 fighter jets had matured, and the purchase of J-6 fighters was the best choice for Somalia and Barre.
In 1979, the action faction of Barre immediately sent Somali Vice President Samatl to Visit China, the most important purpose of which was to disclose to the Chinese side the idea of buying J-6 fighter jets. This was a good thing for China, which was in urgent need of funds to develop its domestic economy at that time, and could bring a lot of foreign exchange income to the mainland.
Therefore, it did not take long for the mainland to send a professional team to Somalia to talk in detail about the sale of fighter jets.
12 talks, concessions and persistence, and finally negotiated a deal
The contingent sent by the mainland is composed of scientific and technological personnel specializing in military trade, so after arriving in Somalia, the Sofang side took a delegation to visit their military equipment base and hoped that the professionals of our delegation would help repair the fighters they currently have.
It turned out that although the Soviet Union provided Somalia with many military weapons such as fighter jets in order to control the Red Sea region, the technical personnel of the Sofang side were too scarce, and some of them could not even read the instructions of the fighter jets, let alone repair them.
In order to establish good cooperative relations with the Sofang, the delegation spent more than 20 days after arriving in Somalia to help the Sofang repair fighters, which left a deep impression on the Sofang.
The mainland delegation also made a major discovery: at a military base in Somalia, it accidentally found four Soviet-made Su-22 engines. It turned out that when the big brother of the Soviet Union had close relations with Somalia, he did not hesitate to send 4 Su-22 engines first, but the fighter jets could no longer come to Somalia because of the breakdown of relations between the two countries.
These four engines, which were the most advanced engines in the Soviet Union at the time, were useless in the eyes of the Somalis, and they were randomly packed in wooden boxes and thrown outdoors in the wind and sun. The Chinese delegation was very distressed, and they began to think of bringing back these four engines.
After nearly a month of running-in, the two sides finally sat down at the negotiating table. However, as soon as the so-called side spoke, our delegation found that something was wrong. It turned out that the Sofang side actually wanted to empty the gloves of the white wolf, and they said for example, the mainland was very generous when it established diplomatic relations with the outside world. For example, the mainland has provided free military weapons such as fighter jets to some small countries, especially in the Sofang side, and has also provided construction talents.
The representative of Somalia even believed that the big countries were to help the small ones and that it was only right to charge them no or to collect them less. Sofang said so, in fact, he wanted to get a batch of military weapons from the mainland for free, but at that time, the mainland had entered the stage of reform and opening up, and strengthening domestic economic development was the primary task, requiring huge capital investment, and the previous support policy had changed. Therefore, the mainland is certainly unacceptable to the mainland for the claimant's gratuitous demands.
However, the Sofang side urgently needs to strengthen its own armed equipment, which is also well known, how to get the Sofang side to place an order to buy the mainland's fighter jets, which has become a breakthrough for the mainland delegation.
At this time, Sun Tzu's Art of War was also used on the negotiating table, and "wanting to get away with it" was the best strategy after the mainland delegation discussed it. Somalia is fighting, and the delegation has helped the Sosome side to repair fighter jets, from the mapping situation, Somalia can really go to the battlefield less than 30 fighters, and most of them are old models, on the mainland has been eliminated. Therefore, Somalia is very much in need of new fighter jets.
In response to this situation, our delegation told Somalia that it would return home on 8 October. The Sokata side was also anxious when it heard this, and once again requested a joint consultation meeting. The progress of this meeting was very fast, and the Sofang side decided to purchase 26 J-6 fighters from the mainland, and at the same time needed VIP services for installation, maintenance and guidance from the mainland.
The mainland also exchanged the cost of four J-6 fighter jets for the su-22 engine, and the agreement made it clear that Somalia needed to pay China a purchase fee of 33.1 million US dollars, and the claimants said that they could not pay it in one lump sum, and paid half of the fee first. The other half, paid off after the fighters were put into service, the mainland once again made concessions, agreeing to this payment method.
How to recover the huge balance? Fishery resources are on the table
However, in the end, the practice of the so-fang side surprised the whole world.
The mainland hastened to send these fighter jets to Somalia and sent a large number of experts to Somalia for professional technical guidance, but the Sokata side has no intention of paying the balance.
Our personnel really can't afford to delay, and have sent foreign-related personnel to negotiate with the Sofang official seven times, but Somalia has been using no money to prevaricate, refusing to pay, and the final payment of more than 17 million US dollars has dragged people's hearts. You can't let this payment go astray, can you?
In order to recover the losses, China Aviation Technology, which is responsible for the production and sale of fighter jets, has thought of a way to make up for the losses with fishing?
Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa, where there are rich marine resources, especially fishing, because there are pirates here all year round, private fishing boats dare not come out, so that the fish here have a better production environment, rare fish are also particularly abundant.
If you can fish and sell here, it is also a good way to make up for the loss.
After the approval of the relevant leaders of the country, it was finally decided to try first, and send two net-casting fishing boats with a total of 260 tons to fish for a year to see how economic benefits are.
From 1989 to 1990, fishing in Somalia saved more than $200,000 for the mainland, and if you want to get better economic benefits, you need to improve the equipment of fishing boats, after all, the preservation of deep-sea fish is related to direct price, but the fishing boats used on the mainland at that time had no refrigeration function at all, and they could not reach the deep sea.
Based on this, after conducting on-the-spot analysis, the relevant leaders of China Aviation Technology decided to apply to the superior leaders for the replacement of salvage equipment, but civil unrest in Somalia began.
In order to protect the safety of mainland citizens, at the end of 1990, all Chinese citizens and experts from various industries in Somalia were urgently withdrawn according to national arrangements. Among them are fighter jet development experts previously sent to Somalia.
At the same time, due to the impact of the situation, Somalia's control over the coastline is almost equal to zero, in order to ensure the safety of mainland citizens, the previous idea of upgrading fishing equipment has also been stranded, and all fishing activities on the Somali coastline have been terminated.
The trade exchanges with Somalia this time seem to be a big loss for the mainland, but the mainland's style as a big country and its attitude of keeping its promises have won a lot of applause in the international community. Nowadays, the mainland's military and scientific and technological strength has stood on the world stage, the strength of the national strength makes our country intolerable to others, and the J-6, as the pillar of the history of the mainland air force, has also gloriously completed its mission and retired, but its contribution to the mainland's territorial air defense cause and economy is something we cannot forget!