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Russian Lawyers Prepare To Attack
April 3,
2008: Russian military sales to China in 2007 are down 62 percent from 2006.
For the last decade, Russia has averaged nearly $2 billion worth of arms sales
a year to China. Russian exports weapons to about sixty nations, but China and
India comprise the majority of those sales. The loss of Chinese business has
been expected for many years. Part of it is due to Chinese efforts to improve
their ability to design and manufacture complex weapons systems themselves. But
what really has poisoned relations between the two countries has been the
Chinese practice of copying Russian military gear, without paying for it. This
theft of intellectual property, some of it due to bribery and espionage, came
to a head last year when the Russian government finally demanded that the
Chinese stop the stealing. China, as it usually does in these cases, denied
everything and refused to take any action. This forced the Russians to either
stop shipping high tech gear to China, or to look like saps. This time, the
Russians did hold back on some shipments, and are continuing to threaten the
Chinese with legal action. This could get interesting, because the Chinese are
not trying to sell their illegal copies of Russian equipment on the
international market. This could expose the Chinese to litigation.
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