An American Australian university associate professor and ‘China expert’, everyone I present to you one of the most self serving, one-sided, and biased analysis-opinion piece... and may I add a pretty funny one if you read between the lines
Some juicy highlights and comments
When ever people talk about India not copying anything or respect intellectual property, I always find it interesting how no one ever mentions Indian pharmaceutical companies and their generic drugs industry...
I find this a rather amusing point... as unlike all other areas military technology is one of those you really don’t want to rely too much on others unless your country is ok being under the foot of others... the Chinese have been on their own and has achieved their own successes while suffering some failures but still on a whole successful in their endeavours and Pakistan used as a comparison is just wrong, since Pakistan relative to India is still a poor country and yet has been able to be on a relatively same footing as India when fighter jets are concerned, actually assembling and developing iterations when India’s own was basically in limbo, that’s just embarrassing for India
Well sure when you are the biggest buyer why not, hell if China has any chance to be a supplier they probably would also offer assistance too... assistances isn’t free they make money from these ‘assistance’ why would they not do it and because India ‘respect’ intellectual property, iterations would probably also involve some form of royalty or license fee... whereas the Chinese would take the project as base and develop their own iterations and be self-reliant in the long run...
So the Indians are doing exactly what China was doing... tech transfer... only difference is the Chinese learnt and made it their own... of course no one is keen to sell to China... the Chinese is reaching parity any more help would basically mean top of the line systems which would in turn give the Chinese the edge... and local production with India’s ‘respect for intellectual property’ just means they will be making money on systems that wouldn’t be top of the line, by the time the production line is up and running or to capacity, in the long run anyway so why not...
As if...
How about waiting for what comes out of the production lines before thinking exports... Russian fighters flies pretty well in Russia when produced and maintained by Russians but seems to have problems everywhere when India is producing and maintaining them... I am sure Lockheed or others don’t want their plane to be known to fall out of the sky... seems foreign companies pitching their wares to India is the important thing...
It’s all well and good until the US puts the ban hammer on exports thanks to their involvement or ‘assistance’ in your ‘indigenous’ fighter... further what good will the airframe do when the munitions are strictly controlled, expensive and will have to go through other hoops and red tape to get...
Funny... so the foreign companies want India to produce ‘high-end’ weapons cheaply that would most likely be competing with future indigenous Indian weapons that I am sure India themselves want to be able to sell... basically both hampering self reliance, in the long run, and potential future markets at the same time, since these foreign ‘high-end’ weapons licenses will still be owned by foreign companies and since they are being produced cheaply they will be competing with India’s own development on India’s own procurement orders, therefore potentially killing two birds with one stone... what a move that would be!
With this Credit they want but credit they don't want to give.
