February12, 2007:
Russia recently announced that none of the 500 Russian RD-93 jet
engines China is buying could be exported to a foreign country. This is a
problem, as China needs those engines for the 150 JF17 fighters it is building
for Pakistan. What makes this particularly nasty is that Pakistan has invested
$150 million in the development of the JF17. Pakistan thought Russia would give
China permission to export the RD93 equipped aircraft. After all, China
was such a large customer for RD93 engines (originally designed for the
MiG-29), and those 500 RD93 engines are worth $1.25 billion. But apparently
India played hardball, and demanded that the Russians forbid the export of the
RD93s from China to Pakistan. India is a major customer for Russian weapons,
including cooperative development deals. China is a big customer for Russian
weapons as well, but India buys more stuff, and is seen as less of a future
threat to Russia than China.
But
it gets more interesting. China has been developing a similar (apparently
identical) engine to the RD93, the WS-13. Actually, this effort is being aided
by Russia, which is selling China technology needed for the manufacture
of key engine components. Russia isn't happy about this, because they don't
want competition in the low cost jet engine market. Then again, China has a
history of stealing technology it cannot buy, so the Russians are making the
best of a bad situation. China says the WS-13 is nearly ready for service.
Maybe, maybe not. Building high performance military jet engines is difficult,
and China has had problems mastering this kind of stuff. Not that they will not
eventually acquire the skills, but if they don't, they could just ship RD93
equipped JF17s to Pakistan and say that the aircraft are using WS-13s. Would
Russia make a big stink about this? Probably not. China and Russia have
financial incentives to lie together, and all India can do is complain about
what might be (as far as they know) a Chinese deception. As the fictional Don
Corleone so factually put it, "it's business."