After independence, Ukraine inherited 35% of the Soviet Union’s military-industrial production capacity. Except for supersonic fighter jets, almost all weapons, including ICBMs, can be found on the Ukrainian military production list, making it the sixth-largest arms exporter in the world. China was once one of the largest importers of Ukrainian weapons, and as a result, China’s weaponry modernization has benefited a lot.
In the field of weapons and equipment, Ukraine has been most helpful to China on Varyag aircraft carrier, the first aircraft carrier of the Chinese Navy, the Liaoning, the second generation of Soviet-built aircraft carriers after the Kiev class – the Kuznetsov-class carrier II, which was completed and launched during the Soviet era. The Kuznetsov I, which sailed from the Nikolaev shipyard in Ukraine to the Northern Fleet a month before the collapse of the Soviet Union, eventually became the Russian Navy’s only aircraft carrier.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia did not have the will or the financial means to continue construction of the Varyag, so it was removed from the Russian Navy and handed over to Ukraine to cover its debts, and Ukraine also did not have the financial means to continue construction and did not even have the money to dismantle it and sell it for scrap metal. “The Varyag was parked in the shipyard for several years until 1998, when China purchased it in the name of transforming it into an offshore gambling ship, along with a full set of design drawings for the Varyag in tons. After the “Varyag” arrived in Dalian, China in 2002, it took ten years to sharpen its sword. In 2012, the new “Varyag” was delivered to the Chinese Navy for service. This is the Chinese Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning Ship.
It is worth pointing out that the Soviet Navy built four Kiev-class aircraft carriers in total, except for the third ship, Novorossiysk, which was bought and dismantled by a Korean shipyard, and the fourth ship, Admiral Gorshkov, which was disguised as the “Vikramaditya” in the Indian Navy, the first ship “Kiev” and the second ship “Minsk” are located in the Chinese aircraft carrier theme park. After the transfer of the Soviet Union’s only carrier-building capability, Nikolayev Shipyard, to Ukraine, Russia de facto lost its carrier-building capability, and the Kuznev was overhauled at the Murmansk Star Shipyard, with the completion of the overhaul unlikely since it entered the yard in 2018. In fact, the main business of Murmansk Star Shipyard was repairing nuclear submarines during the Soviet era, and dismantling nuclear submarines during the Russian era. 32 nuclear submarines, including 22 nuclear ballistic missile submarines, were dismantled from 1993 to 2007.
The Soviet Union developed two types of carrier aircraft for the Kuznetsov-class carriers, the MiG-29K of the Mikoyan Design Bureau and the Sukhoi Su-33 of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, which were developed from the MiG-29, a front-line fighter for the Soviet Air Force, and the Su-27, an anti-aircraft interceptor fighter for the Soviet Territorial Defense Air Force. Both China and Russia have chosen to develop their carrier-based aircraft from the heavy fighter Su-27, consistent with the Chinese Air Force’s choice to purchase the Su-27 over the MiG-29, and India’s Vikramaditya’s choice of the MiG-29K due to its medium carrier tonnage.
China has successfully localized the Su-27 fighter through the introduction of the Su-27 fighter production line and independently developed and improved the J-11B, it has the ability to independently develop and improve the Su-27 fighter, but the naval fighter is still a new subject for China, the T-10K-3, one of the prototypes of the Su-33 naval fighter, and related information from Ukraine gave China great help to finally develop the J-15 naval fighter. It can be said that the technology from Ukraine has contributed to the construction of Chinese aircraft carriers.
In addition, the European Bison class air cushion landing craft, which China plans to use for the unification of Taiwan, were also imported from Ukraine, two were built in Ukraine and two in China, and all technical information was transferred to China. This is the Type 958 air cushion landing craft, which can bring a fully armed amphibious landing company to the beachhead at a time. The Chinese CJ-10 cruise missile also has its roots in the Soviet Kh-55 air-to-ground missile acquired through Ukraine, the main Soviet air-launched cruise missile with a range of 2,500 kilometers.
The engine of China’s L-15 trainer, the trainer-10, comes from Ukraine’s Madasich; the diesel engine of the MBT-2000 Khalid main battle tank developed by China for Pakistan, the 6TD-2E, comes from Ukraine’s Maleshev plant; the development of China’s naval gas turbines also cannot be separated from the UGT-25000 gas turbine introduced by Ukraine’s Zorya-Mashproekt Machinery Design, Research and Production Consortium, which was initially reluctant to transfer the technology and only agreed to do so after entering the 21st century due to economic difficulties.
Compared to Russia’s reservations on arms sales to China, Ukraine’s arms sales to China are unrestricted and have really helped China’s military modernization tremendously, according to analysts Ren Ran. Of course, after leaving the Soviet Union’s defense economy, Ukraine could not afford to continue to maintain and develop such a huge military-industrial system, and selling technology in exchange for hard currency was the best option. In those years, Ukraine could be considered a treasure trove for countries around the world, and South Korea’s T-50 trainer and Italy’s M-346 trainer had their roots in Ukraine’s Yak-130 trainer.
The proliferation of ballistic missile and cruise missile technology after the Cold War is also related to Ukraine, and the cruise missiles of South Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan and North Korea all have their origins in the Kh-55. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. purchased a large number of Russian D-180 rocket engines because it found that they were much less expensive than its own development. This procurement is decades, until the recent U.S. sanctions against Russia due to the war in Ukraine, and Russia banned the sale of D-180 rocket engines to the United States.
Compared to weaponry, Russian and Ukrainian scientists in economic distress after the collapse of the Soviet Union are more valuable, and research institutions in the United States, Germany, Israel, South Korea, Singapore and other countries have sent experts to Russia and Ukraine to recruit talent on generous terms. South Korea claims that Ukrainian experts can get visas and airline tickets by contacting the Korean embassy in Ukraine, and offers a monthly salary of about several thousand dollars. The Chinese government launched the “Double Introduction Project” to bring in Soviet talents and technologies, and then Premier Li Peng said that this was a group of outstanding talents that could not be cultivated in a decade, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for China that could not be missed.
Of course, China-Ukraine military cooperation is not smooth, Chinese companies to acquire Madasic was vetoed. In a way, Motor Sic, as an aero-engine research and development institution, has been eating the old capital since the collapse of the Soviet Union and has been able to sustain itself so far thanks to the orders from China. But in 2021, the Ukrainian government vetoed the deal and announced the nationalization of Motor Sic at the instigation of the United States. It is worth pointing out that the merger took a sharp turn for the worse precisely after the current Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, came to power in 2019. In purely commercial terms, the acquisition of Motor Sic was optional for China; instead, Motor Sic needed China more.