Even USA’s closest allies supply arms to China

PRAVDA.Ru reported on July 1 that the Chinese Air Force performed a successful test of the AA-12 Adder air-to-air missle, which is of Russian production. American Army analysts think that such missiles could exert considerable influence on a change of the balance of forces between China and Taiwan, in China's favor, which is a not something that Washington is looking forward to, of course.

America's closest allies add more fuel to the fire to the American Defense Department and State Department officials. Israel is one of those "allies." The Washington Times reported that American special services had been surprised recently. They discovered that the Chinese army is using Harpy unmanned planes. At first, it seems that there is nothing surprising about this, but Harpy planes are of Israeli production. They were produced at the beginning of the 1990s by the specialists of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). The aircraft is meant for to fight against radar stations. It should be added that Harpy planes are very mobile; they can be used at any time, in any place.

The US Defense Department considered implementing the project CUTLASS (the Combat UAV Target Locate and Strike System) on the ground of the Harpy project, which was integrated with the AIM-9 missile detection system of the Raytheon company. These systems can be used for destroying well-protected targets like radar stations, as well as for standard intelligence objectives. Furthermore, Harpy planes were sold to India and South Korea.

Israel has become one of China’s arms suppliers long ago, whereas the USA banned the export of defense technology to China back in 1989 after the events on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing (when a student demonstration was brutally broke up with tanks).

In 1999, American special services came to conclusion that Israel secretly sold Patriot missile production technology to China. Israel and China surely rejected those assertions, but the CIA is still certain of the transaction. Now, there is another scandal.

However, one shouldn't count on any penalties or sanctions imposed on Israel or on Israel Aircraft Industries. This is not a good time for that, taking into consideration the fact that the Americans cannot do anything about the Chinese. Therefore, Washington will have to watch Beijing strengthen its army in the south of China, very close to Taiwan.

Vasily Bubnov PRAVDA.Ru

On the photo: Harpy unmanned plane

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov