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| China's J-20 stealth fighter |
By Jacques KLOPP
China is beginning to export its own weapon designs, including armed drones, worldwide and is reaching "near-parity" with the West in terms of military technology, according to a report on Tuesday.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies said that China's official defence budget of $145 billion (137 billion euros) last year was 1.8 times higher than those of South Korea and Japan combined.
It also accounted for more than a third of Asia's total military spending in 2016, the IISS annual Military Balance report said, adding that spending in Asia grew by five to six percentage points a year between 2012 and 2016.
Total global military spending instead fell by 0.4 percent in real terms in 2016 compared to 2015, largely due to reductions in the Middle East.
"China's military progress highlights that Western dominance in the field of advanced weapons systems can no longer be taken for granted," IISS director John Chipman said at a presentation in London.
"An emerging threat for deployed Western forces is that with China looking to sell more abroad, they may confront more advanced military systems, in more places, and operated by a broader range of adversaries," Chipman said.
The report found that in terms of air power "China appears to be reaching near-parity with the West".
It said one of China's air-to-air missiles had no Western equivalent and that China had introduced a type of short-range missile that "only a handful of leading aerospace nations are able to develop".
It said China was also developing "what could be the world's longest range air-to-air missile".
Read the full story at SpaceDaily