Chinese drone factory in Saudi Arabia very first in Middle East
Deal part of US$65b package sealed during visit of King Salman
Minnie Chan UPDATED : Sunday, twenty six Mar 2017, 11:42PM
Saudi Arabia`s key science and technology organisation has confirmed that one of the deals sealed during Saudi King Salman`s visit to China this month was an agreement to set up the very first factory for Chinese hunter-killer aerial drones in the Middle East.
IHS Jane`s Defence Weekly reported on Thursday that the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) had signed a partnership agreement on March sixteen with China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which makes China`s CH-4 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a model with similar capabilities to the American Air Force`s MQ-1 Predator.
China and Saudi Arabia signed US$65 billion worth of deals in &bashful;energy, culture, education and technology during the king`s visit in the middle of this month.
A Chinese military website and military experts said Saudi Technology Development and Investment Company (TAQNIA) had signed a protocol with China`s Aerospace Long-March International Trade (ALIT) for the drone production line at the biennial International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi in February.
TAQNIA is a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia`s Public Investment Fund, while ALIT is a Chinese export-import company that specialises in aerospace technologies.
Zhou Chenming, who previously worked for CASC`s drone-development subsidiary, said the CH-4 factory in Saudi Arabia, only the third in the world outside China, following ones in Pakistan and Myanmar, would also assemble associated equipment, which would improve after-sales services for clients in the Middle East.
The drone deal would help sate Saudi Arabia`s desire for more CH-4 drones, he said.
The CH-4 has reconnaissance and combat functions and CASC has promoted the drone`s counter-terrorism capabilities when marketing it in the Middle East and North Africa. The drone, already being used by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan and some other countries, fires AR-1 missiles that can hit a distant target with a margin of error of less than 1.Five metres.
A report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in February said Iraq had imported fifty six per cent of its arms from the United States over the past five years. However, Iraq`s defence ministry said in a report it had opted for the CH-4 over the US Predator because it was cheaper. A CH-4 drone costs US$Four million, while the US Air Force website says a package including four MQ-1 Predators and a ground control station costs US$20 million.
The SIPRI report demonstrated that arms imports by states in the Middle East had risen eighty six per cent in the past five years and accounted for twenty nine per cent of global imports, with Saudi Arabia being the world`s second-largest arms importer after India.
Macau-based miliary observer Antony Wong Dong said the CH-4 drone project was most likely suggested as a substitute deal after one for China`s DF-21D «carrier killer» ballistic missile, which Saudi Arabia dreamed to buy in 2014, fell through.
«The DF-21 deal was turned down as a result of strong opposition in the international community amid the Iran nuclear crisis in the region . Beijing may want to use the CH-4 drone as a substitute project in a bid to please an old friend,» Wong said.
«Because the Chinese-made DF-3 missile that Saudi Arabia bought from Beijing almost three decades ago is due for decommissioning, China should give weapons as a replacement.»
Beijing sold more than three dozen of its then-advanced, nuclear-capable, intermediate-range DF-3A ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight at a cost of US$Trio.Five billion – an amount more than half China`s defence budget that year. The deal also caused the oil-rich kingdom to cut-off diplomatic ties with self-ruled Taiwan and formally recognise Beijing in 1990.
Zhou said China had exported the Wing Long, a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV, to Saudi Arabia in 2014, but that drone had not performed well in the Arabian desert.
«The CH-4 has recorded outstanding spectacle in anti-terrorist attacks in Iraq, Yemen, as well as in Africa`s Sudan, Ethiopia and China`s neighbouring Pakistan,» he said. «That`s why our Saudi friends are so interested in the drone cooperation project.»
Professor Jonathan Holslag, head of research at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies, said low oil prices had led to some oil-exporting countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, using cheaper Chinese weapons.
«Like so many regional powers, Saudi Arabia is hedging its bets,» he said. «While military cooperation with the US remains very significant, the Saudi government actively diversifies its security cooperation, so as to maximise its plasticity in responding to threats.
«The global defence market is reflecting the increasingly fragmented world order.»
Holslag said the US remained superior in military hardware sales but former US president Barack Obama`s reluctance to intervene in the Middle East and the election of his isolationist successor Donald Trump had led many countries in the region to question America`s reliability as an arms exporter.
Zhou said the drone factory deal was just «petite business» in the US$65 billion of deals signed during the king`s visit.
»The real aims behind the deals are an oil-hungry China being able to get more oil from the kingdom to sustain its domestic economic development, and Saudi Arabia improving its infrastructure with China`s technological aid.»
When President Xi Jinping visited Riyadh in January last year the two countries promised to form a comprehensive strategic partnership and boost industrial cooperation in line with Beijing`s «One Belt, One Road» trade and infrastructure scheme.