What CIDEX is instead is a exhibition of the many components that make up the Chinese military’s weapon systems, radar networks, computerized control and navigation systems, etc. Chinese firms attending CIDEX are often also not very forthcoming about which weapons systems their products are used in either and it takes someone who has knowledge of that hardware in order to discern what it is they are looking at.
An example would be the firm, Kotel Micro Technique Co., Ltd. This company is one of the leading firms in China for design and manufacture of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology and is utilized in the design of the Chinese equivalent of a Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM)-type kit that can be retrofitted to conventional, “dumb” bombs.
The set of components manufactured by Kotel for this kit are:
— SAK01-03 acceleration switches - These are installed in three separate sections of the bomb kit and interactively operate with one another. They provide pressure and acceleration data that are then fed into the bomb kit’s guidance system.
— FKZD-01 vibration sensor.
— INS-M100 MEMS Inertial Navigation System - This unit is the main control module in the bomb kit’s guidance system, operating at an RS422 bit rate. Like all MEMS components it is quite small and measures only 120mm x 120mm x 120mm. Data sheets provided by Kotel on this component state that it utilises GPS for its targeting system. The company does not say whether of they also can datalink with the Russian GLONASS global positioning system, nor does it make any mention of the Chinese COMPASS GPS system.
The photo shown on the Kotel stand is clearly that of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) Fei Teng (FT)-1 precision-guided bomb. The company also supplies components for the Luoyang Optical-Electronic Technology Development Centre (LOEC) Leishi (LS)-6 extended-range glide bomb and the (Leiting) LT-2 laser-guided bomb, as well as for the other CALT design, the FT-3.
Kotel representatives stated that their chief customer is the Chinese military, but that they are looking for export partners, one of which is presumed to be Pakistan. The JDAM-style bomb that was shown on the Kotel stand showing the use of their components in this type of weapon appears to be the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) Fei Teng (FT)-1.
Chinese defence products were once thought of as being moderately capable copies of previous-generation hardware that contained attributes of Russian, European and Israeli designs. Some of those bloodlines can still be seen in their designs, but the products now being seen at an expo like CIDEX show that Chinese firms have capabilities that approach first world industrial, state-of-the-art levels of sophistication.
In the 1990s, when the Russian defence was in danger of drying up and closing its doors due to an almost complete collapse in any funding from their own government, it was China that saved the day. China bought billions in military hardware from Russia, but it also sent its engineers, designers and technicians to study inside of Russian industry to learn how the weapons it was purchasing had been developed in the first place.
This transfer of technological know-how, plus some enormous investments by the Chinese military into its state-owned industries (what more than one Russian has referred to as “uncontrolled and rampant modernisation”) has produced a defence electronics industry that far outstrips the size and capacity of that which existed in Russia when Chinese industry first began their cooperation with Moscow in the early 1990s.
Today the former students (the Chinese) have become the masters. Chinese industry now has the ability to produce components that the Russian electronics industry (after almost two decades of no investment by their government) is no longer capable of either designing or manufacturing. The initial failure rates on the production of transmit/receive (T/R) modules for the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars being designed for the Mikoyan MiG-35 and the Sukhoi T-50/PAK-FA 5th-generation fighter, for example, were so high that it would have bankrupted any western firm involved in a similar programme.
Not surprisingly, this year’s CIDEX show saw groups of Russian specialists going through the halls and looking for components that they could source out of China to be utilised in Russian-designed weapon systems. Russian specialists will point out that they are now at a huge disadvantage to the Chinese in two very significant respects.
One is that the commitment by the central government in resources to the defence electronics sector is both sustained and serious. “They can take a field where there is nothing but flat land and wild grass,” said one Russian company representative, “and the next thing you know there is a full-blown factory or design centre there turning out a world-class product.”
