China Is Prepared to Reap the Strategic Rewards of Its Relationship With Russia

Lyle J. Goldstein,The National Interest•

Chinese air power these days is something to behold. In the course of just about thirty years, Beijing’s aerial inventory has gone from quite obsolete to cutting edge. It’s worth noting, moreover, that Chinese airpower is but one tool that Beijing can wield in the skies.

If its massive missile forces perform as expected, destroying adversary runways, then there will be few enemy aircraft getting into the air to contest the supremacy of China’s fighters and bombers—or at least very few of them will be able to gain access to much of the western Pacific.

The Russia-China military cooperation has already fundamentally altered the balance in the Asia-Pacific region more than once. Moscow sold to Beijing four rather advanced destroyers and twelve extremely capable diesel submarines with all the related armament during the 1990s.

This arms sale was facilitated by a relationship that existed between the two countries in the 1950s, which is when hundreds of vessels (and designs) were transferred from Russia to China. The same process has transformed Chinese airpower—perhaps even more so. 

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