Recently, the Russian satellite news agency Moscow quoted the "Times of India" on August 31 that India is planning to punish weapons suppliers from many countries for violating the set-off obligations stipulated in the defense contract. According to the information exposed by the media, India currently intends to impose different disciplinary methods on arms suppliers from different countries, for example, for weapons suppliers from the United States, India intends to issue a "cooperation ban" to restrict arms trade cooperation between the United States and India. Arms suppliers from France, Israel and Russia are likely to be fined as punishment by the Indian side under the so-called "obligation of set-off".
It is reported that the reason why India began to "attack" arms dealers this time is that according to the policy of offsetting defense contracts first announced by India in 2005, when India signs an arms trade order with a foreign arms supplier, the foreign arms supplier should return to India for investment according to at least 30% of the total contract value to help India develop local industry and ensure the smooth progress of technology transfer. However, when it comes to getting these foreign companies to pay money to carry out "rebates" for India, they have engaged in the tricks of "delaying" and "prevaricating" one after another, and there are not many foreign arms suppliers who have truly fulfilled their relevant obligations.
In order to severely crack down on such phenomena, India intends to "move the real thing" this time. At present, the Indian Ministry of Defence has informed a number of foreign arms supply companies that if they do not comply with their obligations in a timely manner, the secured funds they deposit in Indian banks for other projects may be forcibly confiscated by India or used to offset unfulfilled contracts. Some military experts believe that this is a rare tough measure taken by India against arms suppliers, which is conducive to India gaining a certain degree of initiative in future arms trade cooperation, but some netizens joke that India actually dares to find Russia, the United States, France and other countries to lose money! It is true that it has "drifted".
India has long played a "fat sheep" role in the international military trade market, and all the arms trade orders related to India can always make the seller side earn "full of money", but India itself is not strictly speaking an economically developed country, or even a powerful industrial country. As a large grain producing country, India needs to use a large amount of grain for foreign exchange, and has repeatedly revealed that there is a huge food supply gap, which can be seen that India's development is extremely unbalanced.
Under such circumstances, India can often "buy in the trenches" in the international arms market, among which in addition to the "superb" operating methods of military trade companies in various countries, India's own problems are even greater. From the floods in some parts of India last year, as well as the spread of the new crown epidemic that has continued so far, it has highlighted that India's national governance and control capabilities need to be improved, but India often turns a blind eye to them, treats these serious problems with a "very optimistic" attitude, and is always keen to regard itself as a "big country", likes to take the initiative to compete with neighboring countries, and military frictions occur, so it can be seen that India's military appetite is extremely large.
Because the strength of its own military industry needs to be improved, India is currently even difficult to achieve self-production of some conventional ammunition needed by its own army, but in the process of pursuing the qualification of "big country", the demand for weapons and equipment is very huge, so collecting weapons and equipment from the international arms market has become the "best" or even "only" choice. Commodity trading has always been "scarce and expensive", India can not build it itself, then the price of buying is what others say.
In India's past military transactions, there have been many super orders that can be called "epic", for example, Russia has paid away nearly $3 billion in India's "refit" costs in 11 years by giving away Indian aircraft carriers for free, which is equivalent to directly building a new aircraft carrier of the same level. The Indian Air Force's latest French Rafale fighter jet, its export price to India is also more than 200 million US dollars, more expensive than the price of the United States' fifth-generation F35. It can be seen that such a "big patron" as India has fed the arms dealers enough.
In addition, India is particularly fond of making all-round "comparisons" with neighboring China. India believes that China and India are "poor and white", India started from a better foundation than the original China, can completely achieve china to surpass, so in line with the idea of "China can, India can also", India has repeatedly hoped to achieve "localization" of weapons and equipment. However, the restrictions on the level of India's defense industry are there, and India can certainly not achieve this goal on its own, so it is imitated by China, and the combination of "introduction" and "self-research" to drive the development of the military industry has been adopted by India.
However, unlike China, which develops its own technology after thoroughly understanding technology, India's "introduction" and "self-research" combined plan is completely "drawing a cat according to the tiger"! In the research and development process of "domestic equipment" on the Indian side several times, although the Guanghui fighter and arjun tank "shine on the scene", almost all the main parts of these equipment are purchased from abroad, and due to the long downline cycle, the definition of weapons and equipment that is "factory is backward" has been truly realized, so the so-called "Indian domestic production" is not as good as being called "Indian assembly", which is more appropriate.
From India's vigorous development of domestic weapons and equipment, it can be seen that India actually does not want to be "slaughtered", of course, India itself also sees the weakness of its own military industrial system, which is the main factor affecting the overall situation, therefore, when India conducts foreign procurement, those orders that are willing to export technology to India are often more popular with India, and in 2005, India issued a series of regulations in the form of defense contract offset policies, the original intention is also to let arms dealers see that they actively "pay money". Can pull the Indian industry a handful.
However, what are the consequences of "international cooperation" with these military trade powers, India is not the first country to taste bitter fruit, China actively introduces foreign technology when it does not suffer less losses, foreign partners often verbally say that they will not set technical barriers, but when they really encounter some core technology problems, the other party's approach is usually to keep silent, sometimes after a large amount of "technical consulting fees" are thrown out, and even a "splash" can not be smashed, so China will pay so much attention to the core technology of equipment. Will be so desperate when tackling the technology! At present, the big arms suppliers want to rely on technological superiority to harvest India, and India is still counting on the great powers to pull it, which is completely delusional.
For example, after China conquered the optical fiber production technology, it not only made China's informatization process improve rapidly, but also directly reduced the purchase price of optical fiber per core kilometer in the international market to 80 yuan per core kilometer, and India is now obviously hoping to accelerate the arms suppliers to fulfill their commitments through tough means, but will they obediently obey India's orders?
Because India does not take the initiative in the arms trade transaction, even if the so-called defense contract offset policy has been promulgated, the other party still has a great deal of room for maneuver, the most direct is to increase the contract price, and the "rebate" is also counted into the contract, the result is a Ponzi scheme of "wool out of the sheep", India is unlikely to get too much benefit from it.
There is also a way is that the other side participates in the Indian localization manufacturing process of equipment, but sets up barriers to the core technology, so that India's localization is still dependent on the country of origin of the equipment on the core components, and finally gives India a "tragedy" of "making is better than selling", India's Su30mki is an example, according to external statistics, the Russian Army's Su30 international pricing is about 40 million US dollars / frame, and India's introduction of technology to produce each aircraft Cost is as high as 62 million US dollars / frame, So far, many core parts and technologies are in the hands of Russia.
Seeing this, it is no wonder that some netizens will ridicule India for "drifting", that they have no key equipment manufacturing capabilities in their hands, no strong national defense industry, and want to force arms dealers to "return profits", and sooner or later they can only be slaughtered again.
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