【Military Subplane】Author: Lele
In late March 2024, the two arms purchases that have been rumored for many years finally came to an end, but both were bad news. Thailand's purchase of Chinese S-26T submarines is basically over, and it has turned to buy 2 offshore patrol ships, and Argentina has also chosen the second-hand F-16AM and abandoned the "Thunder" Block 3. At the same time, China's Fire Dragon-300 tactical missile was also revealed to have lost the competition with South Korea's KTSSM-I at the end of last month and missed the UAE order. For a time, the export of domestically produced military equipment was quite stormy.
▲ "Thunder" finally failed to fly to Argentina
At the end of the 70s, China's military industry made clear the basic principle of replacing military aid with arms sales, and immediately encountered the historic events of Egypt's request to purchase a large number of military weapons and the start of the Iran-Iraq war, which was more than 40 years in the blink of an eye. Recently, export equipment such as VT-4 and "Thunder Dragon", which are familiar to the outside world, basically continue the export experience of their predecessors in the early years - there are achievements but they have not yet spread all over the world. In the entire field of equipment exports, buyers are those few over and over again, and it is extremely difficult to break through. Against the backdrop of the rapid development of domestic military weapons, this limitation is particularly eye-catching, and it has indeed reached a time period that needs to be resolved.
▲ VT-4 has been sold to Nigeria
According to statistics from the Stockholm Peace Research Institute in Sweden, China's military trade volume has not changed much in the past 10 years (due to the particularity of military trade, it is a five-year statistical cycle), but Pakistan occupies an increasing share. In other words, while China's total exports have remained largely unchanged, Pakistan's acquisition of Chinese weapons has risen sharply over the past five years, while other countries have generally declined, with only a few users in Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia increasing slightly. This abnormal state is largely related to the sudden changes in the external environment after 2018.
▲The Chinese weapons that Pakistan has been equipped with in recent years are obvious to all
For example, after the problem of Germany's refusal to supply the S-26T diesel engine, the country quickly provided an alternative (that is, a mature model of the imitation German diesel engine), and the Thai Navy spent more than 10 months to verify it anyway, stating that the engine performance was okay and accepting the alternative. Finally, the new Thai cabinet in September 2023 (which firmly opposed the S-26T submarine procurement case when he was in opposition) rejected the Thai Navy's appeal. and further reduce the latter's proposal of more than $400 million to purchase one frigate (it should be the 054A modification) to more than $200 million to purchase two offshore patrol ships. The background of Argentina's abandonment of the "Thunder" Block3 is also the fact that the Argentine Air Force submitted a procurement proposal that was not approved, and the Argentine government led the introduction of second-hand F-16s. To put it bluntly, the failure of the export of domestic military equipment is often not due to poor performance, but to be politically intercepted after being recognized by the buyer's army.
▲The performance of the F-16AM does not surpass that of the "Thunder" Block 3
This situation is not uncommon in the world, and the most extreme example is the interception of Egypt's purchase of Su-35SE by the United States in 2019. At that time, Egypt had been purchasing Russian-made weapons for many years and had acquired a series of heavy equipment such as the Ka-52, S-300 and MiG-29M2. Seeing that the Su-35SE worth nearly $3 billion was about to be delivered, the US government first publicly threatened in April of that year, saying that once Egypt received the Su-35SE, it would invoke the "US Hostile State Sanctions Act" to impose comprehensive sanctions on it. On November 13, in the context of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu's visit to Egypt and the fact that Russia and Egypt had just concluded the first joint military exercise of "Friendship Arrow-1", then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper jointly wrote a letter threatening Egypt to abandon the Su-35SE arms purchase. In the end, Egypt was overwhelmed and canceled the order, and the Su-35SE is still stranded in Russia to this day, and it is rumored that it will be exported to Iran. With Egypt as an example, Algeria, Malaysia and other countries that were once interested in the Su-35 are naturally unlikely to introduce the Su-35 again.
▲ The Su-35SE has not been delivered to Iran until now
The situation facing China is not so bad, but the disruption to equipment exports is really serious. For example, Argentina tried to obtain the F-16 twice in the early years, but both failed due to British interference. When it became interested in Thunder Block 3, the U.S. almost immediately addressed the British obstruction and provided the Argentine matchmaker with an F-16 attitude rarely seen in the world. Countries like the United Arab Emirates, which have purchased a series of weapons from China in recent years, such as the L-15, AR-3 and SR-5, are clearly the model with the lowest input cost and can be directly matched with the AR-3, but in the end they can only choose the KTSSM-I with an American background. It is only at this moment that we have a truly profound understanding of the statement that military trade is essentially a political extension.
▲The AR-3 that the UAE bought before itself has the potential to launch tactical missiles together
It is unrealistic for China's military industry to get rid of this passive situation and make a large-scale political counterattack, and the most appropriate way is to launch a few truly heavyweight equipment to counteract the political influence of the United States by virtue of its extraordinary strategic value. For example, Turkey would rather abandon the F-35A than choose the Russian S-400, and Algeria also purchased the S-400 despite the warning of the United States, which is the best example. From this point of view, the "J-35E", which has appropriate value and influence, and is destined to be the old enemy of the American F-35, is actually the most worth looking forward to. Following the glory of the J-7, AVIC's export business is about to usher in a golden age in which the J-35 plays a leading role.