"They've made remarkable progress in the development of their arms industry, but this progress shouldn't be overstated," said Vasily Kashin, a Beijing-based expert on China's defense industry. "They have a long tradition of overestimating their capabilities."
Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategic Technologies and an adviser to Russia's ministry of defense, predicted that China would need a decade to perfect a jet engine, among other key weapons technologies. "China is still dependent on us and will stay that way for some time to come," he said.
Indeed, China has ordered scores of engines from the Salyut and Chernyshev factories for three of its new fighters - the J11B, a Chinese knock-off of the Russian Su-27; the J10, which China is believed to have developed with Israeli help; and the FC1, which China modeled on an aborted Soviet design. It also told Russia that it wants a third engine from another factory for the Su-35
The Pentagon, in a report to Congress this year, said that the pace and scale of China's military reform "are broad and sweeping." But, the report noted, "the PLA remains untested in modern combat," thus making transformation difficult to assess.
China tried to buy Russian nuclear submarines but was rebuffed, so it launched a program to make its own. Over the past two years, it has deployed at least one of a new type of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine called the Jin class and it may deploy as many as five more.
The Office of Naval Intelligence said the Jin gives China's navy its first credible second-strike nuclear capability; its missiles have a range of 4,000 miles. But in a report last year, the ONI also noted that the Jin is noisier than nuclear submarines built by the Soviets 30 years ago, leading experts to conclude that it would be detected as soon as it left port.
"There's a tendency to talk about China as a great new military threat that's coming," said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. But, when it comes to Chinese submarines carrying ballistic missiles, he said, "they could be sitting ducks."
Another problem is that China's submariners don't train very much.
China's entire fleet of 63 subs conducted only a dozen patrols in 2009, according to U.S. Navy data Kristensen obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, about a tenth of the U.S. Navy's pace. In addition, Kristensen said there is no record of a Chinese ballistic-missile sub going out on patrol. "You learn how to use your systems on patrol," he said. "If you don't patrol, how can you fight?"
China's military relations with Russia reveal further weaknesses. Between 1992 and 2006, the total value of Russia's arms exports to China was $26 billion - almost half of all the weapons Russia sold abroad.
But tensions arose in 2004 over two issues, Russian experts said. Russia was outraged when it discovered that China, which had been licensed to produce the Su-27 fighter jet from Russian kits, had actually copied the plane. China was furious that after it signed a contract for a batch of IL-76 military transport planes it discovered that Russia had no way to make them. After receiving 105 out of a contracted 200 Su-27s, China canceled the deal and weapons negotiations were not held for several years.
Purchases of some items continued - S-300 air defense systems and billions of dollars worth of jet engines. An engine China made for its Su-27 knock-off would routinely conk out after 30 hours whereas the Russian engines would need refurbishing after 400, Russian and Chinese experts said.
"Engine systems are the heart disease of our whole military industry," a Chinese defense publication quoted Wang Tianmin, a military engine designer, as saying in its March issue. "From aircraft production to shipbuilding and the armored vehicles industry, there are no exceptions."
HONG KONG, China, China's production of J-11B fighters using Russian technology has become the latest bone of contention in the military cooperation between the two countries, following prolonged problems over an IL-76 transport aircraft deal.
An authoritative source from the Russian military industry says that Russia has officially notified China that the latter's production of J-11B fighters is a violation of the original agreement between the two sides. If Russia cannot get a satisfactory response from China, it reserves the right to take legal action to protect its property rights, the source said.
Many sources from the Russian military industry are upset over China's production of J-11B fighters. According to the Su-27SK Fighter Technology Transfer Agreement reached between China and Russia in 1995, Russia would supply to China first 95 then an additional 105 sets of parts to assemble Su-27 fighters. The domestic production of the Su-27SKs was to proceed with assistance from the Russian side through the transfer of technology.
The agreement explicitly outlined the specific areas of technology transfer and the corresponding schedule. In the course of assembling the planned 200 Su-27SKs, all the core component parts including the engines, radar systems and avionics equipment was to be supplied by the Russian company. Russia had already made preparations in 2004 for the delivery of 105 sets of parts for assembly and all the related equipment had been put in place.
Right from the start, the Russians noticed that China's practices were very different from those of India, with whom they were also conducting military technology transfers.
In the first place, the Chinese were very sensitive, and exhibited a strong distrust for their Russian counterparts. Russians were not allowed in the production workshops of the J-11 fighters.
Later in 2004, the Chinese abruptly notified the Russians that they no longer needed the 105 sets of Su-27 components. They complained that the fighter's radar technology was out of date. The Russians therefore upgraded 70 Su-27SKs and a small number of J-11s with RVV-AE active radar guided air-to-air missiles. The Russians proposed the same upgrade for the remaining batch of 105 sets of parts, but China did not respond.
Around the same time, a series of incidents occurred in which Chinese nationals attempted to acquire Su-27SK component parts and production blueprints through illegal means. They were caught in the Russian Far East by the Federal Anti-espionage Agency, according to one Russian source.
From 2005, China imported a number of AL-31F engines and some other parts, saying they needed them for repairs on the fighters. Soon after that, the Russians discovered that the Shenyang Aircraft Company was manufacturing a fighter called the J-11B. Though the Chinese claimed it was a newly designed aircraft, Russian experts believed the J-11B was an exact imitation of the Su-27SK. The Chinese had violated the terms of the technology transfer agreement by creating their own indigenous version of the Russian aircraft.
This is similar to what occurred with regard to the Z-10 combat helicopter China built after importing engines from Canada, claiming they were to be used for civilian helicopters.
The Russian military industry has not made clear what legal action it will take if it is convinced that China violated Russian intellectual property rights. However, a civil aviation technology analyst based in Moscow says that the J-11B incident will surely have a major impact on cooperation between China and Russia in the aviation industry.
Russia is now conducting a full assessment of the importance of the Chinese arms market to the Russian military industry. Some analysts believe that Russia is already switching its priority to other markets because of China's failure to fulfill its commitments. Under this circumstance, the likelihood that Russia will export Su-35 and Su-33 fighters to China is growing smaller. New obstacles may also interrupt the export of additional AL-31F engines and Su-27SK component parts to China.