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Special Report - Chinese military's secret to success: European engineering
Reuters ^ | Thu Dec 19, 2013 | David Lague

Posted on 12/20/2013 11:34:57 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki

HONG KONG (Reuters) - If the People's Liberation Army went to war tomorrow, it would field an arsenal bristling with hardware from some of America's closest allies: Germany, France and Britain.

Most of China's advanced surface warships are powered by German and French-designed diesel engines. Chinese destroyers have French sonar, anti-submarine-warfare helicopters and surface-to-air missiles.

Above the battlefield, British jet engines drive PLA fighter bombers and anti-ship strike aircraft. The latest Chinese surveillance aircraft are fitted with British airborne early warning radars. Some of China's best attack and transport helicopters rely on designs from Eurocopter, a subsidiary of pan-European aerospace and defense giant EADS.

But perhaps the most strategic item obtained by China on its European shopping spree is below the waterline: the German-engineered diesels inside its submarines.

Emulating the rising powers of last century - Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union - China is building a powerful submarine fleet, including domestically built Song and Yuan-class boats. The beating hearts of these subs are state-of-the-art diesel engines designed by MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH of Friedrichshafen, Germany. Alongside 12 advanced Kilo-class submarines imported from Russia, these 21 German-powered boats are the workhorses of China's modern conventional submarine force.

With Beijing flexing its muscles around disputed territory in the East China Sea and South China Sea, China's diesel-electric submarines are potentially the PLA's most serious threat to its American and Japanese rivals. This deadly capability has been built around robust and reliable engine technology from Germany, a core member of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Arms trade data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to the end of 2012 shows that 56 MTU-designed diesels for submarines have been supplied to the Chinese navy.

"They are the world's leading s

(Excerpt) Read more at ca.reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Germany; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: aerospace; china; europeanunion; france; germany; nato; plan; unitedkingdom

1 posted on 12/20/2013 11:34:57 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki
We have met the enemy and he are us!

Of course there is money to be made selling the tools of the trade, the safety of your sovereign nation being damned.

2 posted on 12/20/2013 11:42:13 AM PST by buckalfa (Tilting at Windmills)
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To: sukhoi-30mki
Reminds me of Idris Seabright's story The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles http://www.www3.reocities.com/Paris/villa/4018/texts/Man-Who-Sold-Rope-to-the-Gnoles.html

It didn't end well for him, and this won't end well for us either.

3 posted on 12/20/2013 11:49:48 AM PST by JoeFromSidney ( book, RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY, available from Amazon.)
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To: sukhoi-30mki
The W-88 design was not European.


4 posted on 12/20/2013 11:57:48 AM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Nothing new. The MiG-15 in Korea used British engine technology.

The US F-86 in Korea used German engine technology.


5 posted on 12/20/2013 12:08:44 PM PST by donmeaker (The lessons of Weimar will soon be relearned.)
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To: sukhoi-30mki
They get the good stuff while the rest of the world is stuck with cheap consumer goods made in China.

6 posted on 12/20/2013 12:11:40 PM PST by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Their secret to economic success is low U.S. Tariffs.


7 posted on 12/20/2013 12:15:38 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Their secret to China’s economic success is low U.S. Tariffs.


8 posted on 12/20/2013 12:15:54 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Chinese missiles get off the launch pad courtesy of Bill Clinton.


9 posted on 12/20/2013 1:06:05 PM PST by Ray76
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Same pattern during the entire 20th century.

Global Anglo-American companies sell military hardware globally, right along with all the other products and services they sell - to anyone and everyone.

WWI, WWII - all wars, same story.

But that’s all conspiracy “theory”, like this “theory” that (gasp) Chinese military is buying from European companies.

You can’t have much of a war if the technology and hardware is too one-sided; it only lasts 3 weeks and the backward nation has no military targets left.

Must arm both sides if you want to have a war.

To find out when and where the next wars or “conflicts” will be, call the global financiers.


10 posted on 12/20/2013 1:39:55 PM PST by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves)
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To: DannyTN

“Their secret to China’s economic success is low U.S. Tariffs.”

No, it’s having hundreds of millions of desperate people willing to live as factory slaves for 3 hots and a cot.

And a leadership who doesn’t care about turning a few rivers red or skylines brown.

Mainly it was our willingness to buy things made by them. To trade our wealth and our neighbor’s livelihood for cheap disposable junk.

We shouldn’t have been trading with polluters and human rights violators, period.


11 posted on 12/21/2013 9:01:12 AM PST by varyouga
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

Thanks sukhoi-30mki.


12 posted on 01/06/2014 12:26:04 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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