Russian equipment is falling into Western hands
And this could be bad news
for the Chinese military
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Incogni.
You probably know that companies are collecting your personal data. But you may not realize just
how many. Dozens, maybe hundreds—most of which you’ve never heard of. And you have
no idea what they’re doing with it. Incogni helps stop them. I’ll explain more at the end.
China is doing the largest military buildup since World War II.
And to get there, they’ve been getting some “inspiration.”
Like China’s J-31 fighter jet, which looks a lot like America’s F-22.
And China’s Y-20 transport plane, which looks like the Boeing C-17.And
China’s Z-20 helicopter, which looks surprisingly like a Black Hawk.
And even China’s “Rainbow 4 Drone,
which is designed to spread the same rainbows of death as America’s MQ-Reaper.
Those designs are largely the result of outright theft of US technology.
But China is also using Russian military technology.
And that’s where things get interesting.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine slogs on, with heavy casualties on both sides.
But one silver lining to the whole affair is that
Russian military equipment is being damaged, destroyed or abandoned.
Why is that a good thing?
In addition to the obvious dwindling of enemy assets, it means that much of the
previously-unobtainable Russian military equipment can be given to western militaries for analysis.
And that equipment also helps us understand what’s happening in China.
See, China’s People’s Liberation Army got its start thanks to a supply of
military hardware from the former Soviet Union.
That hardware ranged from rifles to submarines.
The PLA took that, and reverse-engineered it, or just outright copied it.
Because, as we all know, China’s greatest strength is the industrial application
of “copy and paste.” One of the more modern weapons China has in its arsenal is the Su-35.It’s
China’s updated version of the Soviet-era Su-27 fighter plane.
The Su-27 has been in Chinese service for many years, but China calls it the J-11.
It was manufactured in China through a co-production agreement between Russia
and a Chinese company. At least until 2004,
when Russia discovered the Chinese company
had violated the co-production agreement. Big surprise, I know.
Since then, China has been transitioning to a new aircraft.
China is taking the J-11 design, and making a two-seat version called the J-16.
But China still needs Russian hardware for that.
As far as we know, China has 129 Russian-built fighters of various types,
including 24 Su-35s and 32 Su-27s.
China claims to have more than 172 J-16s and well over 400 J-11s.Still,
one has to ask: How different are these aircraft from the Russian variant,
given the level of reverse engineering applied to other military hardware in the past?
Meanwhile, over the last several months, Russia’s Su-27 and Su-35 fighter jets
have been shot down by an ace pilot flying one of Ukraine’s Soviet-era MiG-29s.
I believe we have footage of that.
Anyway, the wreckage of Russian military aircraft has been nothing short of a gift
for western military analysts.From their radar to electronics components,
these downed aircraft provide a goldmine of information that western militaries
can use to counter Russian and Chinese military forces in the field of battle.
And Western militaries have also discovered that a lot of the Russian aircraft are
filled with illicitly-sourced American components, particularly microchips.
They’ve also found Chinese components found in Russian military hardware.
That’s become something of a joke, with many experts claiming the Russian procurement of cheap,
low-quality Chinese parts helped the Ukranians more than the Russians.
From breakdowns to blown tires to failing mechanics,
numerous cases of equipment failures have been traced back to Chinese components.
Hmmm...Maybe China should just stick to copying consumer goods.
And this episode has been sponsored by Incogni.
Wherever you do anything online, there’s a lot of companies that collect your personal data.
Your name, your email, your home address, your social security number,
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What are they doing with your data? Some of them are selling it to marketers who want to sell you
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When I signed up for Incogni,
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I had never heard of most of these companies.
But I started looking into them. And it turns out one of them, called Nfocus,
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See, the US government can’t seize your digital data without a warrant...but
they can buy it from private companies!
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And that’s why you should really consider using Incogni.
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Just a few months after signing up, Incogni had already gotten my details removed from
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.