How Beijing built an arms industry to rival the West

In 2016, Beijing launched a new aerospace conglomerate called Aero Engine Corp. of China.

- Chun Han Wong

New jet engines show results of China's military self-sufficiency push.

(REUTERS)

It had a challenging mandate: to develop top-line aircraft engines, a technology China had long struggled to master.Less than a decade later, Beijing's newest stealth fighters are entering service with what officials call "Chinese hearts," or indigenously made engines.

The progress marked a milestone in China's quest to forge an arms industry worthy of a rising global power. For years, China's rise obscured a sobering reality: It couldn't make all its own weapons.

Beijing is now not only producing its own armaments, it is also selling more abroad. In some military technologies, China appears to be matching major arms producers such as Russia and the U.S., or even pulling ahead.

The ability to churn out advanced armaments is a key element in Chinese leader Xi Jinping's vision of making his country less reliant on the outside world for everything from food and energy to semiconductors. A more self-sufficient China is essential for preventing Western nations from locking it into a strategic stranglehold, Xi has argued.

Two decades ago, China imported more arms than any other country, according to The Wall Street Journal.the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or Sipri, an independent think tank.

China used to rely on the likes of Russia and France for warplanes, aviation engines and air-defense systems, and even struck deals to buy military hardware from the U.S. in the 1980s, including radar systems and artillery technology.

But China's share of global arms imports has fallen significantly and the Asian power has dropped out of the world's top 10 buyers in recent years, according to Sipri data. Analysts say China can now produce most of the military technologies it needs, even if it continues using some foreign hardware for cost or quality reasons.