India top weapons importer,displaces China

The latest data by SIPRI confirms what military insiders in India have been discussing

India has displaced China as the worlds largest importer of conventional weapons even as Beijing has expanded its domestic arms sector to emerge as one of the top global exporters of arms in the past five years,latest data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) suggests.

While China was listed as the worlds largest importer of arms between 2002-2006 according to the think-tank that tracks global weapons deals,it has rapidly expanded its arms production capabilities in the last five years and is now the sixth largest supplier of arms with Pakistan being its primary customer.

India has expressed concern in the past about the increasing Sino-Pak military nexus,which also came to the fore when several thousand Chinese engineers with protection forces were sent to work on crucial projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). The latest data by SIPRI confirms what military insiders in India have been discussing in the recent past.

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In fact,the phenomenal rise of China as a world-level exporter of arms comes firmly on the back of Pakistani orders with the SIPRI report stating that Beijing has not been able to crack any other market.

Pakistan has a long-term military relationship with China and during 2007-11 it received 64 per cent of the volume of Chinese exports. This included 50 JF-17 combat aircraft,3 F-22P (Zulfiquar) frigates and 203 MBT-2000 tanks. China has not achieved a major breakthrough in any other significant market, the report notes. While India accounts for 10 per cent of global arms imports,the report says that Pakistan with five per cent of world imports is the third largest arms importer after South Korea.

While India was the worlds largest importer in 2007-11,with 10 per cent of all imports,its neighbour Pakistan was the third largest,accounting for 5 per cent of imports. Pakistan took delivery of a significant quantity of combat aircraft during this period, the report says.

SIPRI says that Indias imports of weapons increased by 38 per cent over the past five years with major imports listed as 120 Su-30 MKIs and 16 MiG-29Ks from Russia and 20 Jaguar (fighters) from the UK.