Defense Focus: Lebed's ghost -- Part 3

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Russia's refusal to sell China any of the jewels in its air and ground forces' military arsenals -- and China's continued efforts to buy them -- reveal important and almost totally overlooked insights about the complex and sometimes strained nature of the Sino-Russian strategic relationship.

In some respects, the relationship is now closer than it has ever been. In August, the two nations held the latest in an ongoing series of major joint tactical military exercises in the Urumqi region of northwest China and in the Chelyabinsk Ural region of Russia. Other large and significant joint exercises were carried out on and around the Shandong Peninsula of northeast China in 2005.

Many U.S. analysts have played down the significance of these exercises and of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or Shanghai Pact, structure, arguing it has nothing like the ongoing massive joint planning and coordination permanent structures of the NATO alliance or the old Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.

That is true. But the United States and Britain became closely cooperating and exceptionally successful military allies in World War II after a far shorter period of tactical coordination between their militaries following U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's re-election to a third term in 1940. Only 13 months later, that rapid learning curve paid off big time when Britain and the United States became two of the most closely coordinated and successful military allies in history.

As respected Russian analyst Nikita Petrov noted last month in a commentary for RIA Novosti, China and Russia "are Shanghai Cooperation Organization members, hold similar positions on virtually every international issue, cooperate in the U.N. Security Council and at other international forums; and their leaders always emphasize strategic partnership at bilateral and multilateral summits."

Why, then, does Russia still refuse to sell China the crucial weapons systems that Beijing craves?

First, the deadlock reveals that in some respects China's military-industrial buildup is still vulnerable, insecure and fragile. As Petrov pointed out, the latest Urumqi exercises revealed -- to the Russians as well as to the Chinese -- serious shortcomings in much of China's domestically produced military equipment.

China desperately needs to buy more sophisticated items like Shmei -- or Bumblebee -- rocket infantry flamethrowers, 120mm Nona-SVK and Vena self-propelled guns, 152mm Msta-S self-propelled artillery systems and -- most of all -- 300mm Smerch -- Tornado -- multiple-launch rocket systems -- MLRSs -- from Russia.

Beijing cannot yet begin to produce anything to compare with Russia's T-90S main battle tanks, its BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, BTR-80 armored personnel carriers -- APCs. It has nothing to match Russia's Mi-28 Havoc and Kamov Ka-50 Hokum "Black Shark" attack helicopters.

In recent years Russia has happily sold China at least $6 billion worth of weapons, especially Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft and even four Sovremenny-class destroyers. These arms sales have boosted China's capabilities to wage in its own back yard a conventional weapons sea and air war against U.S. forces.

But at the same time, the Russians, as Petrov acknowledged, have taken care not to allow China to buy or reverse-engineer conventional military systems that could give it parity with Russia on the Eurasian land mass over the next few years.

The arms-sales deadlock therefore reveals that in the key area of military industry, Russia remains far stronger than China, despite China's astonishing industrial achievements of the past 30 years.

Russia's population is little more than 10 percent of China's. And if it were not for its great oil and gas reserves and development, it would be an industrial and macroeconomic basket case. But Russia does have those resources and a treasury with gold and hard currency. And it also has a high-quality, cost-effective military-industrial sector that still produces high-quality aircraft, tanks and weapons.

Russia, therefore, retains far more old-fashioned military strength and the sinews of traditional power than American pundits, obsessed with the sexy but "soft" power of electronics and communications and IT software, give it credit for.

It should also be noted that China's hunger for Russian oil and gas looks certain to grow dramatically in the coming years. Therefore, the more China's population and economy grow, the more dependent, not less, it may become on the goodwill and cooperation of Russia. This dynamic may only intensify if China's relations with the United States should deteriorate because of tensions over Taiwan in the foreseeable future.

When the SCO was created on June 15, 2001, Russia was widely seen as the weak junior partner -- the driving initiative for the new organization, after all, came from Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

But today Russia is in the saddle of the SCO. The extent and limits of the Sino-Russian relationship are set in the Kremlin, not in Beijing. This fact is insufficiently appreciated in the West.