China's Defense Technology and Industrial Base in a Regional Context: Arms Manufacturing in Asia

Abstract

This paper examines defense industrialization in three leading arms-producing states in Asia – India, Japan, and South Korea – and how their experiences compare to China's recent defense industrial developments. It argues that despite decades of considerable effort and investments in pursuit of a techno-nationalist self-arming strategy, these countries have experienced only modest success when it comes to achieving such self-reliance. Most regional defense industrial bases lack the necessary design skills and technological expertise in order to truly innovate, and at best these countries act as ‘late innovators’ when it comes to armaments production. The experiences of these countries have lessons for China as it attempts to move into the first tier of arms-producing states. China has over the past 15 years made significant progress in modernizing its defense technological and industrial base. At the same time, China faces the same long-term challenges that currently confront other regional arms industries – that is, making techno-nationalism work at the later stages of innovation. This is particularly critical as China's defense industry strives to move from a basically platform-centric to an increasingly network-centric technological–industrial process.