Swords on Sale
Covering Chinese policy and rhetoric on external events and actors, military and security issues, economy and technology, and bilateral relations with India.
Worldview Weekly: China’s Arms Exports
Anushka Saxena and Manoj Kewalramani | Expanded and Posted from Original Source of Publication: NDTV
In continuing deliberations on the recent India-Pakistan hostilities, a recurrent theme has been China’s weapons support to the latter. Reportedly, Pakistan put on display a massive ‘Made in China’, export-variant arsenal. It comprised the HQ-9P and HQ-16 surface-to-air missiles, the PL-15E air-to-air missile, the JL-10CE fighter, and the co-produced JF-17 ‘Thunder’ Block III jet. Pakistan is also China’s largest client in the world, accounting for 63% of the latter’s total arms export basket between 2020 and 2024. In Pakistan’s terms, this import percentage stands at 81%.
But China’s arms exports to Pakistan are one, rather successful part of a complex military production, export, and diplomacy ecosystem Beijing has focused on building in the past few years. It has increasingly focused on becoming self-reliant in the defence manufacturing domain, building export variants of major arms, and eventually selling them for strategic security and diplomatic purposes.
That said, there are evident challenges China faces in its defence export agenda. This is given that the world as a whole has witnessed a slight decline in defence imports, and that political and quality-related concerns make Beijing the lesser preferred option over and above the top three defence exporters – the US, Russia, and France. Nonetheless, China’s military export market is expanding, and there is merit to assessing the nature and philosophy of its defence production and export ecosystem, and its key clients, to be able to chart out implications for India.
Pillars of China’s Military Industrial Complex
China’s military-industrial complex is governed by a few, large corporations that focus on innovation and self-reliance. These primarily include the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), and China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO). They are all State-Owned Defence Enterprises, largely under the administrative control of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of China’s State Council. Many of them have been on the Global Fortune 500 lists, and together, they own over 2000 subsidiaries, R&D labs, listed companies, and global branch institutions. NORINCO International Ltd., for example, owns oil fields in Iraq, and operates R&D and manufacturing facilities in Saudi Arabia.
These entities operate on the concept of ‘Military-Civil Fusion’. It means that their production cycles conform to the operational requirements of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and most commercial/ civilian products can also be deployed for military purposes at the party-state’s request. Hence, these firms concentrate their expertise on a particular industrial cluster of importance to the PLA.
CETC, for example, is the PLA’s primary radar, communications infrastructure, and electronics supplier. AVIC, and specifically, its main subsidiary, the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAIG), has its hand in the production of most of China’s J-series fighter jets (including the latest 5th generation J-35 and the prototype 6th generation J-36). CSSC, which is the world’s largest shipbuilding group, produces most of the PLA Navy’s warships. Together, CAIG, CASIC and CASC have also produced most of China’s military drones, such as the CH ‘Rainbow’ series, the Wing Loong series (specifically meant for export), and the Wuzhen High-Altitude, Long Endurance (HALE) UAV series.
The agenda and priorities for defence production, R&D, and safety and quality, are laid down by China’s chief regulatory body in the military-industrial domain, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND). Naturally, defence production must comply with SASTIND’s technological, safety and quality certification standards. In addition, party and government institutions like the Ministry of Industry and IT, Ministry of Commerce, and the Logistics Department of the Central Military Commission, together lay down regulations regarding ideological commitment of defence SOEs, innovation and export control, and management of talent.
China’s Military Exports Philosophy
Since 2022, China’s defence budget has consistently witnessed a year-on-year rise of 7.2%. The Government Work Reports mostly emphasise that the increased numbers are to be directed towards safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity, strengthening the PLA’s combat preparedness, and building self-reliance in defence. Nonetheless, some of the financing goes into producing defence goods for the purposes of diplomacy, political leverage and expansion of China’s global reach and market. There is also a profit motive, to support SOEs and boost foreign investment in the domestic military-industrial complex. This is why, China will sell to anyone who seeks, even if they are warring parties. An example is Myanmar, where Chinese arms are available to both the junta government, and the Rakhine-based insurgent group, the ‘Brotherhood Alliance’.
Sometimes, China is also a supplier of last resort for entities seeking low-cost military equipment. One example is Pakistan, which has imported low-cost export variants of the Chengdu J-10C fighter jet (20 are reportedly delivered, and 16 remain). Many of these entities, however, have also included non-state entities such as insurgent groups in Chad and Syria, who were found to be in possession of the Chinese-made FN-6 Man-Portable Air Defence System (MANPADS). Despite the controversies arising from such sales, China veils its sales and uses “non-interference” in internal matters of other countries as justification.
But there are concerns surrounding the PLA’s inadequacy, the restrictions on China’s imports of defence technology from the West, and the secrecy of indigenous defence innovation. For these reasons, Beijing only prioritises international sales of export variant arms, which are usually of lower quality, and keeps the most advanced and efficient defence systems for itself. Chinese commentators also seem to acknowledge that even though China has a cost advantage with a few arms and ammunition, there exists a “technological gap” and a lack of competitiveness against Western alternatives in major arms such as fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and large warships. Hence, Beijing believes in maintaining loyal clients, who are developing economies with restricted international options in defence. This can explain why, in addition to Pakistan, China has also emerged as the largest arms supplier for West Africa, accounting for 26% of the region’s arms imports in the last five years. It is establishing a footprint in the Middle East as well, but is not a dominant player.
Further, China entangles arms sales with defence cooperation and norm entrepreneurship in global security. Xi Jinping’s flagship Global Security Initiative (GSI) aims to do just this. As per the recent White Paper on National Security in the New Era, GSI is Beijing’s way of promoting common, comprehensive and indivisible security among allies and Global South countries. Subsequently, many GSI-friendly countries have become China’s top arms importers. With economies in the ASEAN and Indian Ocean Region (IOR), China has penned joint military cooperation agreements, which provide its arms and ammunition exports a boost. For example, in the aftermath of the recent establishment of a China-Indonesia Joint Foreign and Defense Ministerial Dialogue on April 21, 2025, Jakarta announced that it is finalising a deal to buy 42 J-10CE fighters from Beijing. Further, with hard basing in Djibouti and soft basing in areas like Cambodia’s Ream Naval base and Myanmar’s Kyaukphau port, Chinese troops and naval vessels are finding homes abroad and are testing capabilities in waters in the IOR.
What is China selling, and who is it selling to?
As discussed above, even though China’s defence production is not mainly focused on export, though rapid expansion of manufacturing capacity and output has led to the creation of a Chinese supply for the global arms market. For the longest time, China specialised in the sales of military-grade Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), which include the above-mentioned MANPADS, as well as guided anti-tank weapons, mortars and cannons, rifles, and machine guns. Till 2012, most of these weapons went to developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela.
More recently, China’s defence export products have featured an extensive arsenal of submarines, aircraft, missiles, and artillery, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) or ‘drones’, and electronic, communications, and light vehicle components. Since 2011-12, China has gained more traction than ever for its dominant role in drone exports. In the civilian space, China is already the world’s largest producer and exporter of drones. Today, it is actively penetrating the Combat UAV (UCAV) market. Data from SIPRI and media reports indicate that between 2017 and 2024, the UAE, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, DR Congo, and Pakistan are some of the largest importers of China’s armed, surveillance & reconnaissance, and attack UAVs (refer to Table 1 below). China’s commercial drone giant, DJI, also used to export its popular quadcopter ‘Mavic’ to Ukraine in large numbers, before Beijing imposed export controls on exports of “dual-use” drones to Kyiv, in an implicit show of support for Russia.
In terms of exports of missile technology, China’s sales between 2020 and 2024 are in the hundreds. In fact, China delivered 896 FN-6 portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to Pakistan in 2021, 200 of the QW-11 SAMs to Bangladesh in 2024, and a total of 390+ SAMs and anti-ship/ land attack missiles of various classes to Cambodia. In terms of maritime defence, China’s most infamous CSSC shipyards, dedicated to producing vessels for the PLAN, have been the largest suppliers of naval hulls to US allies like Singapore. Most importantly, to establish a foothold in regional waters, China has engaged with partners like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to jointly build large ports on their territories, and base its submarines and naval vessels there. In fact, since 2010, 70%+ of Bangladesh’s defence imports have come from China, and these include two submarines positioned at BNS Pekua, and purchased by Dhaka for a negotiated price of US$ 203 million.
Implications for India
China is enhancing its arms export market share, albeit at a slow rate. Despite the challenges Beijing faces, however, India’s main concern should be the positioning of its limited sales. As evident from the discussion above, China’s arms sales are concentrated in Pakistan and Bangladesh, while other IOR countries such as Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia are coming up close. When supplemented with China’s military diplomacy in the IOR, the real nature of India’s challenge becomes evident.
Especially in India’s immediate neighbourhood, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka are emerging as China’s key defence clients. For Delhi, the priority going forward must hence be stepping up countermeasures for Chinese arms, and ensuring territorial security in the face of Chinese funding to insurgent and terror groups. It must do so by rapidly amping up the capital outlay in its defence budget, and partnering up with defence powers in the West to co-produce and upgrade its own arsenal.
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Eye on China is a weekly newsletter curated by the Indo-Pacific Studies Programme at The Takshashila Institution, a public policy think-tank based out of Bengaluru, India.
