Russia accuses China of pirating military tech
This must have caused peals of laughter at defense companies in other countries. Nikkei Asian Review reports (porous paywall):
In a rare public display of frustration between Moscow and Beijing, Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec accused China of illegally copying a broad range of Russian weaponry and other military hardware.
“Unauthorized copying of our equipment abroad is a huge problem. There have been 500 such cases over the past 17 years,” said Yevgeny Livadny, Rostec’s chief of intellectual property projects on December 14. “China alone has copied aircraft engines, Sukhoi planes, deck jets, air defense systems, portable air defense missiles, and analogs of the Pantsir medium-range surface-to-air systems”…
Despite Moscow’s ire over Beijing’s theft of technology, it is unlikely to cut back arms exports to China anytime soon. Geopolitical and economic interests provide Russia with a strong incentive to downplay Chinese reverse engineering, experts say.
