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China Weapons Production
In 1987 China adopted a new contractual system for weapons
research, development, and production. It was not clear from
available information how this contract system would affect the
role of the NDSTIC as the coordinating body for defense science and
industry. Previously, the NDSTIC controlled procurement funding,
reviewed proposals for weapons requirements funneled through the
General Staff Department's Equipment Subdepartment, and coordinated
with defense industries to produce the needed equipment. Under the
new system, the state divided defense research and development
funds into three categories: military equipment research, basic and
applied sciences research, and unidentified technological services.
The first type of appropriation went to military arms and services,
which signed contracts with research institutes or enterprises to
develop and manufacture the required weapons. The contract system
involved the PLA, which had been removed to a large extent from
such activities, in the development and manufacture of the weapons
it would use. The second category of funds was devoted to basic
research and applied science to help modernize the defense
industry. The third category went to technological services
necessary for research programs. This reform was another measure
designed to integrate military and civilian industry by placing the
military production of defense industries within the framework of
the planned-commodity economy. The new system further sought to
provide the military with better equipment at a minimum cost, to
force the defense industry to upgrade weapons designs and improve
production, to improve the management of weapons research and
development through state application of economic levers, to
promote cooperation between research institutes and factories, and
to increase the decision-making powers of the enterprises.
Procurement of weapons and equipment represented 45 percent of
the defense budget during the 1967 to 1983 period. This figure
included 25 percent for aircraft, 15 percent for ground forces
weapons, and about 10 percent each for naval and missile systems.
China's military-industrial complex, the third largest in the
world, produced a wide variety of weapons, including light arms and
ammunition, armor, artillery, combat aircraft, fast-attack craft,
frigates, destroyers, conventional and nuclear submarines,
electronic equipment, tactical missiles, and ballistic missiles.
With the notable exception of China's indigenously produced nuclear
submarines, nuclear missiles, and satellites, most Chinese weaponry
was based on Soviet designs of the 1950s and 1960s. Much of this
equipment was obsolete or obsolescent, and beginning in the late
1970s China made great efforts to upgrade the equipment by changing
indigenous design or by incorporating Western technology. The
greatest weaknesses were in conventional arms, precision-guided
munitions, electronic warfare, and command, control,
communications, and intelligence. China attempted to address these
weaknesses by focusing military research on electronics--essential
to progress in the previously mentioned areas--and by selectively
importing key systems or technologies.
Data as of July 1987
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