China revives production of JH-7 strike aircraft?

China revives production of JH-7 strike aircraft

By Kaleem Omar

China is now spending upwards of $ 60 billion a year to modernise its military, with the eventual aim of giving it power-projection capability far beyond its borders. In typical fashion, however, Beijing is not rushing pell mell into this endeavour, but is proceeding with due deliberation one step at a time, so as not to alarm its neighbours. Unlike the United States, China is also not given to throwing its weight about in its dealings with other countries and tends to err, if anything, on the side of caution. Such caveats aside, however, the fact remains that China is becoming stronger and stronger militarily with each passing year and recently announced plans to build its first aircraft carrier battle group. The US has 12 such battle groups, so its going to be a long time before China achieves conventional military parity with America. Such larger issues aside, China has, meanwhile, decided to revive production of its JH-7 strike aircraft. British and French engine manufacturers are vying with each other to provide China with engine technology to support the potential additional production of 170 upgraded JH-7s.First produced in the mid-1990s, the JH-7 met with limited success because the aircraft maker, Xian Aircraft Co., Xian, Shaanxi, China, experienced difficulties in manufacturing the powerplant, the WS9 turbofan engine. The WS9 is a version of the Rolls Royce Spey Mk202 that the company builds under licence.A report in the American weekly military journal Defence News quoted industrial and government sources as saying that China is now planning additional production of the JH-7. According to the report, discussions have been going on with Rolls Royce plc, London, and France’s Societe Nationale d’Etude et de Construction de Monteurs d’Aviation (Snecma), to build engines for the attack aircraft.Jean-Paul Bechat, president of Snecma, was quoted as saying that his company was having regular discussions with the Chinese authorities about the possibility of fitting the M53 engine to a variant of the JH-7 aircraft. The M53 powers the French Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft.Another Snecma official familiar with the Asian market was quoted as saying that discussions with China had so far centred on the technical feasibility of replacing the JH-7’s existing engine with the “slightly more powerful” M53. A Chinese official was quoted as saying that China is building the JH-7. He said the Chinese Navy’s aviation arm is is buying the JH-7. Bringing the JH-7 into widespread service within the Naval Air Force would boost the service’s capabilities, the Chinese official was quoted as saying.A European industrialist was quoted as saying that the People’s Liberation Army’s Naval Air Force could produce an additional 50 to 70 aircraft, and the PLA Air Force may purchase some 100 planes. Some of the planes to be built will be improved variants of the aircraft, dubbed the JH-7A. The JH-7, a two-seat, twin-engine, attack aircraft, is in limited service with the Naval Air Force. According to the Defence News report, the naval JH-7 is equipped with standoff anti-ship missiles and would be used primarily for maritime strike missions.In addition to talks with Snecma, Chinese officials are also discussing the Spey Mk202 with Rolls Royce. Under the terms of a deal concluded in the late 1970s, Rolls Royce has provided several dozen Spey engines to China, with the intention that the Xian Aero-engine Co. was to manufacture the engine under licence as the WS9, says the Defence News report.A source was quoted as saying that discussions with the British company now focus on Rolls Royce providing further support and sub-components to Xian to support a production run of the WS9. Rolls Royce may also provide a number of additional complete second-hand Spey engines. “We have a long standing relationship with China,” Gary Atkins, a Rolls Royce spokesman, was quoted as saying.With regard to the Chinese Spey/WS9, Atkins was quoted as saying, “We have been supporting this project in a number of ways, ever since China acquired a batch along with the manufacturing technology.”According to the Defence News report, there remains considerable political sensitivity surrounding the sale of military equipment to China, which remains subject to a European Union arms embargo, though this covers only weaponry and complete weapons systems.The Snecma official was quoted as saying that since the discussions with Chinese officials had so far been of a technical nature, his company had not sought approval from the French government. He added, however, that if business discussions get underway, Snecma would first have to get French government approval for any sale.“It’s a delicate situation because the European Union imposed an embargo on military exports to China in 1989 which is still in place,” the Snecma official said. He said that any export contracts for this type of engine to China would also have to go through the European Union’s code of conduct for arms exports regulations.The official said that it was likely that China would want to put new engines on the JH-7 in the 2004-2006 time frame, but that these dates were not fixed. China would insist on at least having full repair and maintenance capacity for these engines, he said. Ideally, what they would want “is step by step to reach 80 per cent capacity of building the M53 engine themselves, 10 or 15 years down the road.”Meanwhile, in another development, Russia and China have clinched a deal to have more Su-27SK fighters assembled at a Chinese aviation plant for China’s Air Force.The $ 1.4 billion deal involves a contract for the fighters to be assembled at the Shenyang Aircraft Making Factory in Shenyang, Liaoning province.The contract was signed by Chinese defence officials and managers of Russia’s chief arms exporter, Rosvoorouzhenie. It is not known how many Su-27SK fighters will be assembled under the deal, but the contract reportedly bans the Chinese from exporting any of these jets.A press report said that Ivan Skrylnik, spokesman for Rosvoorouzhenie, refused to give details about the deal, as did Yuri Chervakov, spokesman for AVPK Sukjoi, which develops and manufactures Sukhoi fighters. Both companies are based in Moscow. The Russian government was said to have welcomed the cash deal as it would inject liquidity into Russia’s defence industry and keep employees of AVPK Sukhoi and its subcontractors busy for years.The SU-27SK is an export version of the Russian Air Force’s basic SU-27. The SU-27SK began production in 1991. It has a maximum range of 3,680 kilometres, a maximum speed of 2,125 kilometres per hour and can carry up to eight air-to-air missiles. Though described by Rosvoorouzhenie as an advanced aircraft, the Su-27SK is today not quite in the same class more advanced models, such as the French-made Mirage 2000-5s or modified F-16s operated by the Taiwanese and Japanese air forces, respectively, according to Konstantin Makienko. Deputy head of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow. Paradoxically, the fact that the Su-27SK is inferior to the Mirage 2000-5 and even Sukhoi’s own Su-30MKK fighter could turn into a positive development for AVPK Sukho, Makienko was quoted as saying.“Sooner or later the Chinese will have to upgrade these planes to modern requirements, such as the ability to attack ground targets. This means that Sukho will sign new deals to carry out these upgrades,” Makienko was quoted as saying. Russia and China concluded a $ 2 billion deal in 1996 to have the Shenyang Aircraft Making Factory assemble 200 Su-27SKs from kits provided by AVPK Sukhoi’s Komsomolsk-om-Amur Aviation Production Association, according to CAST figures. China also signed a deal in 1990 to procure 20 Su-27SKs and four Su-27UBK combat/training fighters.In another development, a group of Chinese officials visited Moscow in August 2000 to negotiate the purchase of Russian-built A-50 early warning aircraft. The visit came in the wake of the failure of a similar deal between Beijing and Israel for Phalcon early warning aircraft.The talks focused on an advanced version of Russia’s A-50 early warning and control aircraft, dubbed A-50E, for which the Scientific Production Corporation’s Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Engineering (MNIIP) has already developed an advanced radar system. An MNIIP official was quoted as saying that the Chinese were interested in buying several A-50E aircraft.The Chinese became interested in buying the A-50E in the autumn of 2000 after then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Baruk sent a letter to then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin in July that year informing him of the Israeli decision to back out of the $ 250 million Phalcon sale. Barak’s decision, which was prompted by heavy American pressure to kill the deal, was made during the US-sponsored peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders at Camp David in July 2000.

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