Chinese military exports to other countries

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
$35 million now? Wow. I thought its only $20 million. But then again, compare to F-16 this is still a bargain. Did you know that F-16 cost $165 million each nowadays? :D

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First, consider the source. The wording of the article itself is a very good clue. No objective journalism there in the least.

Second, when you take the obvious bias into consideration in such an article...the first thing you start looking for is some sort of notation that gives you some sort of credible source for these claims.

Guess what? There aren't any.

More and more red flags.

Also...did you note the date of the article? 2011. That was right after Iraq made the first $1.5 billion payment towards what Iraq itself said would eventually be 36 aircraft.

In fact, in 2012 Iraq did sign the deal for the second set of 18 and they paid the same price as the first...$3 billion for eighteen including all of the spares, training, maintenance, etc.

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So Iraq will get a total of 36 fighters, with training, support, maintenance, and all sorts of spare parts for $6 billion. I do not know what the final breakdown is, but I believe that the 36 fighters would probably cost on the order of $3.2.-3.4 billion by themselves.

I know this...the individual cost per plane without spares, training, consulting, maintenance, etc. is not going to be anything like $165 million...nothing even close. Probably closer to $90 million, maybe $95 million.

For the US, the cost would probably be around $85 million...which by the way, is the ultimate target for the F-35A costs when they are in full production and benefiting from that economy of scale.
 

Verum

Junior Member
$35 million now? Wow. I thought its only $20 million. But then again, compare to F-16 this is still a bargain. Did you know that F-16 cost $165 million each nowadays? :D

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That's not the point. The point here is that Argentina probably can't easily pay for couple dozens of these planes. Argentinian economy isn't doing so great over the last few decades. They're not the Gulf Arabs that have to plate their toilets in gold just to find a way to spend money.

Another factor with Argentina is that they don't have any major conflicts with anyone at the moment. There's no dire need for new fighter jets. I'm sure for a country the size of Argentina, it would be easy to cough up several billion dollars if they REALLY have to. But if it's not a necessity, it would be hard to convince its government to do so.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
It comes down to hard cold cash, unless China's willing to do the same for Argentina as they did with Pakistan, just for the sake of expansion of geopolitical presence.

Even the cheapest JF-17 was 30 million USD about 5 - 7 years ago. Now due to inflation, rising income and constantly updated avionics, it would be conservative to say it costs 35 million. Then adding on the parts and maintenance, it would be at least 50 million per plane.

Even if they only buy 20, which is already a lot, considering its current fleet size is almost non-existent, that's still a billion dollars. That's 20% of its annual military budget.

There's very few countries that could easily buy whatever they want, even if they don't have to face any political challenges.
As I have said before, I have no idea where this kind of number came from. Even J-10 did not cost 30 million USD 5 to 7 years ago.
 

SinoSoldier

Colonel
I read in the NYT this article about US arming Sunni states in the ME in opposition to Iran:
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There might be a wish in Iran to buy Chinese radar aircraft to improve its defensive capabilities.

Supplying equipment to Iran is far more damaging towards Beijing's charm offensive, including its push for others to join the AIIB, than will the rise of Sunni states.
 

panzzer

New Member
Registered Member
That's not the point. The point here is that Argentina probably can't easily pay for couple dozens of these planes. Argentinian economy isn't doing so great over the last few decades. They're not the Gulf Arabs that have to plate their toilets in gold just to find a way to spend money.
For the record the contract for the Gripen with brazil was for US $ 5.4 bill by 36 fighters before the UK ban.
Money is not important in itself limiting constraints are domestic policy period.
 

Verum

Junior Member
For the record the contract for the Gripen with brazil was for US $ 5.4 bill by 36 fighters before the UK ban.
Money is not important in itself limiting constraints are domestic policy period.

You're talking about two totally different countries. Brazil is much more populated and much more industrialized. Its GDP is like 5 times bigger. Of course it could afford any weapons it wants.

Argentina's GDP is on same level as Pakistan, so they have to be cautious with what they buy and often buy with soft loans.
 

panzzer

New Member
Registered Member
You're talking about two totally different countries. Brazil is much more populated and much more industrialized. Its GDP is like 5 times bigger. Of course it could afford any weapons it wants.

Argentina's GDP is on same level as Pakistan, so they have to be cautious with what they buy and often buy with soft loans.
Argentina´s GDP is arround 600 bill and pakistan is arround 250 bill. those are the official numbers, without considering that Argentina does not add black market operations to GDP as other countries.
Money is not the problem, internal political decisions are the only limiting factor in the situation of armed forces
It's hard to explain but after three decades the military are paiying for the coups, even if it makes no sense
 
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