“Made in China”: an emerging brand in the global arms market

Abstract

Possession of a brand is a sine qua non for economic success, not least because it connotes trust in delivering the value promised. Successful brands are not isolated to commercial endeavor but apply equally to defense. Although Western, especially American, Original Equipment Manufacturers, offer branded systems whose sales are influenced by price, there are also a plethora of other non-price variables, such as client-state relations, technology offset requirements, life-cycle costs and strategic trade controls. New entrants to the international arms market will struggle in the absence of such arms 'packages'. China's entry into the international arms market, however, is an exception to this rule, and it is the aim of this paper to chart the country's progress in establishing an international brand. The starting point is to profile China's arms exporting experience through a four-stage historical model, providing the contextual backdrop for identifying the distinctive drivers that have forged market entry into 55 countries worldwide. The export strategy employed initially focused on promoting sales of rudimentary military equipment for political purposes, but more recently has sought growth through commercializing exports, repositioning them from a low-to a high-tech foreign sales trajectory. In the process, a Sino 'brand' is emerging, reflecting traditional competitiveness attributes and contemporary diplomatic considerations, especially non-interference in client state domestic affairs.

Who’s prone to drone? A global time-series analysis of armed uninhabited aerial vehicle proliferation

“…3 This is primarily because non-democracies had greater interest in buying Chinese-made technology than democracies. It is also possible that China may prefer to sell armed drones to non-democracies than democracies, but their ''no-questions asked'' approach to arms sales combined with structural incentives as a rising global power to expand their political influence suggests they would probably be willing to sell to democracies if given the opportunity (Li and Matthews, 2017). 4 Non-democracies are more willing than democracies to buy from China for two main reasons.…”

“…And even close American allies, like France, need the permission of the US government to deploy armed MQ-9 Reaper drones imported from the US (Nacouzi et al, 2018). Alternatively, China has adopted a ''no-questions asked'' approach to arms sales in accordance with their principle of ''non-interference'' in the domestic affairs of foreign countries (Li and Matthews, 2017;Tabrizi and Bronk, 2018). As Xu Guangyu, a retired major general in in the People's Liberation Army, said, one of China's major advantages in selling arms is that they do not ''make demands over other governments' status and internal policies'' (Wong and Clark, 2013).…”

“…For example, non-democracies may prefer to purchase weapons from non-democratic exporters because they are less likely to make arms sales conditional on the weapons being used in accordance with international law and human rights principles (e.g. Blanton, 2005;Li and Matthews, 2017). We would thus expect, a priori, non-democracies to be more likely to acquire armed drones from China, and democracies to be more likely to obtain armed drones from major democratic suppliers, namely, the US.…”