Procurement: China Will Sell Anyone Anything

Archives

June 14, 2006: Who's the arms supplier of last resort for dictators? Not East European gunrunners. China will, it appears, sell to any government. For cash, or raw materials. Thus tyrants in Asia (Burma, North Korea, Iran) and Africa (Sudan, Zimbabwe) can get their orders filled, no matter what the rest the world thinks. China does not, however, appear to service rebel and terrorist movements, at least not directly. These groups do have to find a willing gunrunner to supply weapons, and often deliver them to out-of-the-way places. But the gunrunners can usually manage to buy Chinese arms, especially the excellent AK-47 and RPG clones that China has long manufactured.

China has been using availability of arms sales to get deals for raw materials in African countries with shady reputations. Sudan is a prime example. China supplies weapons and trucks for the military, stuff that has been used to slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur. But in return, China gets lucrative oil deals. China offers diplomatic protection to its clients as well, since China has a veto in the UN Security Council.

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close