Following is a guest entry from Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson, co-founders of China Sign Post.
China's military jet engine capability is increasing at a rapid pace, with implications not only for China's independent military capabilities, but also for the global defence industry. Yet China also faces major impediments in achieving its strategic aim of establishing itself as an independent manufacturer in one of aerospace's most complex engineering technologies: high-performance turbofan engines. Our recent paper, Jet Engine Development in China found that China's progress is uneven but that the resources being devoted to the task will likely result in significant strides that will have profound strategic implications.
Strategic Implications
China's lack of a domestic, mass-produced high-performance jet engine for combat aircraft is an enduring weakness for the Chinese military and has slowed the development and production of new, more modern aircraft. To address this, the Chinese Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC) is to invest 10 billion RMB ($1.5 billion) into jet engine R&D over the next 5 years.
The Chinese aerospace industry is pursuing the ability to manufacture large volumes of high-performance tactical aircraft engines with four strategic imperatives in mind:
Avoiding parts dependence: As China develops more of its own tactical aircraft, it will not want supplies of parts to be determined by non-Chinese suppliers, primarily Russian.
Secure supplies: China cannot be certain that its demand can be met by Russian suppliers over the coming decade, as Russian engine makers deliver engines both to the modernising Russian Air Force and to other foreign buyers of Russian aircraft.
Aircraft sales autonomy: China is a growing exporter of complete combat aircraft, but is vulnerable to foreign veto of its arms sales if an engine supplier feels China is in direct competition with its own aircraft. For example, in August 2010, the CEO of MiG expressed unhappiness at the potential for the export sales of Russian MiGs to be undercut by Chinese jets supplied with the same Russian-made engines as the MiG.
Avoiding poor after-sales service: Russian after-sales service often leaves much to be desired and China is keen to be self-sufficient.
Remaining Challenges
It is crucial to understand the scale of the task facing the Chinese aerospace industry. Developing indigenous high-performance jet engines for military aviation is one of the greatest aerospace engineering challenges, and one only a small handful of corporations worldwide have truly mastered. Although the technology can be transferred, it cannot easily be modified – engines face temperature, pressure and G-force challenges that only the most advanced materials, properly machined and operated as an efficient system, can handle. China's progress to date is uneven:
Design capabilities: To reach the pinnacle of development and performance, China must model and refine a total system that is capable of complex component manufacturing and that performs well as a unified whole. Given the range of performance parameters and unpredictable dynamics for jet engines under development, this is no small ask. As China has traditionally relied heavily on copying and emulating foreign designs, this may be an area of particular weakness.
Consistent quality: Engine production demands highly advanced production and automation to ensure consistent quality and economies of scale. Current Chinese military jet engine production has exhibited problems with maintaining consistent quality as production is scaled up, which will be key requirement in order to supply domestic demand and possibly fulfil export orders in the future. It is critical that manufacturers instil a strong organisational honesty to ensure that problems are reported, recorded, and resolved. It will also be critical to integrate the various parts of the design and production processes to ensure the standardisation and quality that are essential for economies of scale.
Structural challenges: There are a number of human and bureaucratic issues that could prove more difficult to resolve than the technical ones. The first vulnerability is the single source contractor risk, where China's entire domestic military jet engine production apparatus lies under the control of a single state-owned institution, AVIC. We suspect that competitive and innovative pressures are not as acute as, for example, in the United States where competition helps produce innovation, faster development, lower costs and better after-sales service. Secondly, experience from the US indicates that inter-service cooperation, management stability at the company and government level, and small teams able to take risks with a minimum of red tape all contribute to development and production breakthroughs. We believe China will also have difficulties with inter-service cooperation as service chiefs compete over the budgetary pie.
Overall Assessment
There are numerous challenges that the Chinese military aviation sector must overcome in the next years and has a lot of ground to catch up; the sector may be as much as three decades behind its US peers in some areas and current development is uneven. But the outlook is not bleak. Far from it.
Despite playing catch-up, China has a 'latecomer advantage' in that it can integrate foreign firms’ learning into its current engine development programs. Also, China does not require complete parity with the US in order to build and sell extremely effective engines and aircraft. There are positive signs of improvements in the production processes, with improvements in precision cutting and machining, increased automation, a better ability to produce high-quality spare parts and much improved process modelling.
Add to that the vast monetary and manpower resources being thrown at the task and it would be unwise to underestimate China's ability to rise to the challenge. We believe that it is likely that within the next two to three years, there will be surprising breakthroughs in China's ability to independently produce high performance jet engines for tactical aircraft, with the production of reliable top-notch engines perhaps 5 to10 years away. This will have profound implications for China's ability to robustly expand and upgrade its Air Force and Navy air fleets, as well as challenging the current leaders in military aviation sales.
Andrew Erickson is an associate professor at the US Naval War College and fellow in the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Programme. Gabe Collins is a commodity and security specialist focused on China and Russia. This is an edited and abridged version of a longer analysis. The full version can be read here.
Mori Ichiban
It seems China now has the money to spend more on defense.
India is still very poor but wasting what little money it has on weapon procurement.
I work for Suzuki in India and I was so very surprised how backward India is even though many Indians think they are so modern.Indians are just bluffing themselves.
Which spot is India in the world economy ranking?
Surely behind Japan, France, Germany and even Brazil. I think India rank only 12 on GDP.
The total lack of basic infrastructures that defines a modern nation is sorely absence.No public toilets, bad roads, a railway stuck in the sixties and slum everywhere for all to see.
Would it not be better for India to spend on building up these infrastructures?
Ah so I bet Brazil will pull so far ahead in a decade, perhaps no 5 spopt while India may be backward at no 13.
Atul
Mori san, It is better to be poor and strong than to bombed by an atom bomb… pity that you "work in India", survive on our money and still short on gratitude… learn from history otherwise Japanese civilization will be doomed for sure in future…And well, SUZUKI is the worst company to work for in India in any case.. that must be your punishment posting, I guess!
xia
As a chinese I can say that every supposedly from “chinese” written India-bashing comment above is ment to permanently disrupt sino-indian partnership, OPEN YOUR EYES, DON’T BE MANIPULATED BY THE WEST, ASIANS WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SO DISRESPECTFUL TO EACH OTHER, CHINA HIGHLY RESPECTS THE INDIAN PEOPLE!! Singapore shall teach us how the chinese and indian civilization can prosper and succeed against western arrogance!
Boris
Innovation in Jet Engine design is a big word, nothing is really innovative in jet design now, it’s more related to better material to match the performance requirement, system integration and proper way of manufacturing with the new material, the framework is done decades ago, it can be classifed as sort of improvement and project belongs to the most complicated human engineering practice. China has its own innovation here such as burner.
I don’t think any PW or GE engineer really believe in any bullshit here.If the first one can complete the test procedure, Design Capability is already demonstrated, Consistent quality and Structural challenges is not a problem and definately will be solved,only question is time and only time.
WS-10 already pass the test phase, then prove its stability need time, and if it can work more than decades, it’s a successful design for sure.
Besides, no much copy can be done here,this is definately different aspect of Jet Engine, you don’t really know why, you can not make it work.
ANIL RAO
India is the only country which dared to reject american jets. It has 2 fifth generation fighter jets programe.
India is making slow but steady progress in the field of jet engines.
Europe and America is circling around India to sell their products and not India circling them.
Today, we are in the position close any deal with our terms.
Frank
Many Indians are really paying attention to China’s topics. So are many other people in this world.
Most Chinese are indifference to India. So are many other people in this world.
It is understandable.
China is much more relevant to India.
China has been producing jet engines for over 50 years. Indians are talking about it for over 50 years. That is THE reason.
Indians mean empty talks.
Chinese mean hard works.
Siddharth
Poor knowledge on your part. India has been manufacturing fighter jets since 1961.
Go and search about ‘HAL HF-24 Marut’ on wikipedia.
Regarding manned space flight, we were already on time in our first lunar mission, second lunar mission is also on time. So is the second capsule recovery experiment.
The astronaut training facility in Bangalore is almost ready before time. The manned space flight will take off on time.
Siddharth
I’m least interested in China and its internal affairs and its affairs with other countries.
But whenever you try to insult India and Indians, I will be insulting China and Chinese equally!
Krypter
You mean China has been buying, copying and in some cases stealing Russian engines for over 50 years. And they still haven’t mastered the technology. Not that Indian jet engine manufacturing is any better…
Laowaiblog
China experiences the same problem in a variety of ways: Lack of innovation and creativity causes China to have the inability to create new technology for itself. This means that China must depend on outside technology to achieve its goals, and, obviously, this fact will make achieving such goals so much more difficult.
Frank
Is it not that anti-ship ballistic missile is China’s innovation?
Let us not forget, Indians do not even have any thing like that.
“achieving such goals so much more difficult.”
However, not impossible.
duke chan
I want to remind you that Chinese “anti-ship ballistic missile” is in testing stage, so you should not be proud with it YET. Even if it is operational, laser can kill it just seconds after launched. Chinese should use the money to feed their extremely poor people instead of making more weapons to bully its neighbors.
Brian
Frank you wrote: At least China is trying to design and produce aircraft engines. Indians do not even dare to try.
At least India didnt steel all the technology like the Chinese. Its not like the J-11B is an all Chinese Tech. They stole the design after Russia let them produce the SU-27 in China. The new J-20 has Russian engines in it, not to mention a Chinese man was arrested trying to steal Russian engine parts. The Indians are trying as well, even though HAL Tejas is an Indian made aircraft the engine is not, but that is the next step.
Frank
“They stole the design” “The Indians are trying as well” I see.
However, I do not think that Indians should be ashamed of doing so. Learning from other people is the best way to improve yourself quickly.
Yes, you are afraid of your white masters not happy about that. OK. I understand.
If you can read Aviation Weeks authored by your white masters, you would know. There are two different engines installed in J-20. One Russia, one Chinese.
Krypter
China isn’t “learning” from others, it’s stealing. There’s a big difference.
Frank
10 years are not long time for China. It is not a dimmer view. It is a realistic view.
At least China is trying to design and produce aircraft engines. Indians do not even dare to try.
Proud to be a Chinese.
Siddharth
Continuous showcasing of poor knowledge on your part. We also developing our own jet engines. Search for ‘Kaveri engine’ you’ll get the details, though its not full developed but we are developing it.
Proud to be an Indian.
Thomas
India is the only major country in this world that cannot develop its own indigenous weapons! Over 50 years, 35 000 scientist and engineers, 100′s of billions of dollars wasted and with nothing to show for! LOL Case in point…the CWG’s! LOL
Siddharth
Poor knowledge on your part. India has been manufacturing fighter jets since 1961.
Go and search about ‘HAL HF-24 Marut’ on wikipedia.
Frank
Which Indian? Red Indian? Or East Indian?
In USA, when people say Indian, they meant American Red Indian.
“though its not full developed but we are developing it.” is laughable.
You are talking about it. That is it. Indians are also talking about manned space flight, etc.
Indians are just empty talks.
Siddharth
Indian from India. You lack knowledge about geography as well. If you said East then where is the West?
Since there is no West Indian therefore the term East Indian is purely a dream term and not a reality!
Pity on your poor knowledge!
yang zi
a superb paper, must read.
China lacks 21st century state of the art manufacturing capability. I have a dimmer view of its ability to make a top notch engine in 10 years.