Pakistan the main customer as Beijing exceeds Britain's share of weapons market while remaining far behind US and Russia
China has become the world's fifth-largest arms exporter, according to a Swedish-based thinktank. It is China's highest ranking since the cold war, with Pakistan the main recipient.
China's volume of weapons exports between 2008 and 2012 rose 162% compared with the previous five-year period, with its share of the global arms trade rising from 2% to 5%, said the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
China replaces Britain in the top five arms-dealing countries between 2008 and 2012, a group dominated by the United States and Russia, which accounted for 30% and 26% of weapons exports, Sipri said.
"China is establishing itself as a significant arms supplier to a growing number of important recipient states," Paul Holtom, director of the Sipri Arms Transfers Programme, said in a statement.
The shift, outlined in Sipri's Trends in International Arms Transfers report, marks China's first time as a top-five arms exporter since the thinktank's 1986-1990 data period.
Now the world's second-largest economy, China's rise has come with a new sense of military assertiveness with a growing budget to develop modern warfare equipment including aircraft carriers and drones.
At the Zhuhai air show in southern China in November Chinese attack helicopters, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and air defences were on public show for the first time.
Sipri maintains a global arms transfers database base that tracks arms exports back to the 1950s. It averages data over five-year periods because arms sales vary by year.
"Pakistan – which accounted for 55% of Chinese arms exports – is likely to remain the largest recipient of Chinese arms in the coming years due to large outstanding and planned orders for combat aircraft, submarines and frigates," Sipri said.
Burma received 8% of China's weapons exports; Bangladesh received 7%; while Algeria, Venezuela and Morocco have bought Chinese-made frigates, aircraft or armoured vehicles in recent years.
Beijing does not release official figures for arms sales.
Germany and France ranked third and fourth on the arms exporter list. China followed only India in the acquisition of arms, though its reliance on imports is decreasing as it ramps up weapons production capabilities at home.
Experts say some Chinese-made equipment is now comparable to the performance of Russian or western-made, though accurate information is scarce.
China faces bans on western military imports, dating back to anger over its crushing of pro-democracy protests in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989. That makes its domestic arms industry crucial in assembling a modern military force as it continues to make claims over Taiwan and disputed maritime territories.
China has faced off recently with south-east Asian neighbours and Japan over conflicting claims to strings of islets in the South China Sea and East China Sea. At the same time the United States has beefed up its militarily presence in the Pacific. Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.
China has become the world's fifth-largest arms exporter, according to a Swedish-based thinktank. It is China's highest ranking since the cold war, with Pakistan the main recipient.
China's volume of weapons exports between 2008 and 2012 rose 162% compared with the previous five-year period, with its share of the global arms trade rising from 2% to 5%, said the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
China replaces Britain in the top five arms-dealing countries between 2008 and 2012, a group dominated by the United States and Russia, which accounted for 30% and 26% of weapons exports, Sipri said.
"China is establishing itself as a significant arms supplier to a growing number of important recipient states," Paul Holtom, director of the Sipri Arms Transfers Programme, said in a statement.
The shift, outlined in Sipri's Trends in International Arms Transfers report, marks China's first time as a top-five arms exporter since the thinktank's 1986-1990 data period.
Now the world's second-largest economy, China's rise has come with a new sense of military assertiveness with a growing budget to develop modern warfare equipment including aircraft carriers and drones.
At the Zhuhai air show in southern China in November Chinese attack helicopters, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and air defences were on public show for the first time.
Sipri maintains a global arms transfers database base that tracks arms exports back to the 1950s. It averages data over five-year periods because arms sales vary by year.
"Pakistan – which accounted for 55% of Chinese arms exports – is likely to remain the largest recipient of Chinese arms in the coming years due to large outstanding and planned orders for combat aircraft, submarines and frigates," Sipri said.
Burma received 8% of China's weapons exports; Bangladesh received 7%; while Algeria, Venezuela and Morocco have bought Chinese-made frigates, aircraft or armoured vehicles in recent years.
Beijing does not release official figures for arms sales.
Germany and France ranked third and fourth on the arms exporter list. China followed only India in the acquisition of arms, though its reliance on imports is decreasing as it ramps up weapons production capabilities at home.
Experts say some Chinese-made equipment is now comparable to the performance of Russian or western-made, though accurate information is scarce.
China faces bans on western military imports, dating back to anger over its crushing of pro-democracy protests in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989. That makes its domestic arms industry crucial in assembling a modern military force as it continues to make claims over Taiwan and disputed maritime territories.
China has faced off recently with south-east Asian neighbours and Japan over conflicting claims to strings of islets in the South China Sea and East China Sea. At the same time the United States has beefed up its militarily presence in the Pacific. Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.