{"id":17309,"date":"2018-10-04T05:26:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T05:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17309"},"modified":"2018-10-04T05:26:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T05:26:14","slug":"chinese-armed-drones-now-flying-across-mideast-battlefields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=17309","title":{"rendered":"Chinese armed drones now flying across Mideast battlefields"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nDUBAI: Across the world, countries locked out of purchasing US-made drones are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, who are world\u2019s main distributors of armed drones.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Chinese product now doesn\u2019t lack technology, it only lacks market share,\u201d said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military analyst and former lecturer at the People\u2019s Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering. \u201cAnd the United States restricting its arms exports is precisely what gives China a great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe sales are helping to expand Chinese influence across a region vital to American security interests.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s a hedging strategy and the Chinese will look to benefit from that,\u201d said Douglas Barrie, an airpower specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n

\nUS drones were first used in Yemen to kill suspected Al-Qaeda militants in 2002.<\/p>\n

\nOne of the biggest Chinese exports is the Cai-Hong, or Rainbow, series made by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, the largest contractor for the Chinese space program.<\/p>\n

\nCASC\u2019s CH-4 and CH-5 models are on a par with San Diego-based General Atomics\u2019 Predator and Reaper drones, and much cheaper. Independent analysts say the Chinese models lag behind their American counterparts but the technology is good enough to justify the price tag, which might be half or less.<\/p>\n

\nA CASC executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists, said cutting-edge US models such as Boeing Co.\u2019s Stingray, introduced this year for the US Navy, still hold a technological advantage.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIn recent years, all types of drones have proven their value and importance through a high degree of use in warfare, and the military has noticed,\u201d said the top CASC executive. \u201cMany countries are now speeding up the development for these weapons systems, including China.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nDuring President Xi Jinping\u2019s five years in power, China has stepped up spending on stealth fighters and aircraft carriers for its own military, while boosting sales of advanced equipment such as attack submarines to close allies.<\/p>\n

\nChina still lags behind the US, Russia, France, and Germany in total arms sales but it is catching up. Chinese arms exports rose by 38 percent in 2008-12 and 2013-17, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks the global arms trade.<\/p>\n

\nWith China\u2019s drone sales booming, there is growing pressure from US arms makers to remove restrictions to let them catch up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DUBAI: Across the world, countries locked out of purchasing US-made drones are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, who are world\u2019s main distributors of armed drones. \u201cThe Chinese product now doesn\u2019t lack technology, it only lacks market share,\u201d said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military analyst and former lecturer at the People\u2019s Liberation Army Rocket Force…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}