Russia refuses to sell arrestor gear for aircraft carrier to China: report

By Lee Seung-joon

Russia has refused to sell arrestor gear to China which wants to buy it for its only aircraft carrier, according to a news report.

“It is prohibited to export strategic armament systems to China, such as aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear weapons production technologies -- all are strategic arms,” said Russia’s defense and foreign ministries, according to the Kanwa News daily.

China bought the Varyag from Ukraine in early 1998, but it came without arrestor gear, a crucial mechanical system used on an aircraft carrier to rapidly decelerate jets as they land. Beijing has been refitting the ship.

Since then, both the Proletarsky Zavod plant and the Marine Engineering Research Institute (MERI) in Russia has held several rounds of negotiations with China about purchasing arrestors. However, a MERI director recently said, “We've received an unexpected instruction from Moscow to cut off all contact with our Chinese partners. In other words, we cannot deliver arrestors to China and other equipment for their aircraft carrier,” the report said.

It is apparent that Russia was upset with China for having copied the carrier-based SU-33 fighter jets in early 2010. Reports said that Beijing made a copy of the jet and called it the J-16.

A. Plotnikov, a representative of Rosoboronexport in charge of looking over policy regarding military technical cooperation between Russia and other countries, said that there are some old versions of arrestors in Ukraine and that China could purchase them. However, even if China buys them, Beijing would need to study them for a long time to develop its own.