On March 10, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its report titled “Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2024.” This report analyzes major arms transfers – including combat aircraft, combat helicopters, major warships, SAM systems, tanks and fire support vehicles, other armored vehicles, and artillery – over the past five years, from 2020 to 2024.
According to the findings, there was a slight decline of 0.6 percent in global arms transfers between the periods of 2015-2019 and 2020-2024. This decline came despite a significant increase in arms imports by European countries, which rose by 155 percent during this time. However, the rise in European arms imports was offset by an overall decrease in arms transfers in other regions around the world.
Ukraine’s arms imports surged nearly 100-fold between 2020 and 2024, establishing it as the world’s largest arms importer. During the same period, the United States, accounting for 43 percent of global arms exports, emerged as the largest exporter of major arms, followed by France and Russia.
China accounted for 5.9 percent of global arms exports over the past five years, making it the fourth-largest arms exporter in the world. However, this share was slightly lower compared to the period from 2015 to 2019. Despite its efforts to increase its global market share in arms exports, many major arms importers choose not to purchase significant quantities from China due to political reasons.
Countries in Asia and Oceania were the primary buyers of Chinese defense goods, accounting for 77 percent of China’s arms exports, while states in Africa accounted for 14 percent. Over the last five years, China has delivered major arms to 44 different countries. Notably, Pakistan, China’s key regional ally, received approximately two-thirds (63 percent) of these arms exports. This is significant considering that Pakistan was also the world’s fifth-largest arms importer during this period, despite facing considerable political and economic challenges.
In addition to this, the SIPRI report also highlighted that China dropped out of the top 10 arms importers for the first time since the 1990-1994 report. China’s arms imports saw a 64 percent drop in imports compared to the 2015-2019 period. During the last five years, China managed to substitute its arms imports, particularly from Russia, with domestically designed and manufactured weapon systems, insinuating that China is becoming more self-reliant when it comes to major military arms. With the increase in the capacity of its local arms production, Beijing’s arms imports are likely to continue to fall in the foreseeable future.
However, this depends on the future security situation in China, especially vis-à-vis Taiwan and other neighboring countries with whom China has territorial disputes. President Xi Jinping has claimed that Beijing is being provoked to go to war with Taiwan. In 2021, a top U.S. military commander in the Indo-Pacific also warned that within the next decade, China could try to invade Taiwan. If so, China would reduce its major arms exports and may increase its arms imports.
The SIPRI report came during China’s “Two Sessions,” the annual political gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). During the meetings, deputies of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in both the NPC and the CPPCC urged Beijing to allocate more civilian resources to emerging technologies to support military development as well as war readiness. This model also aligns with China’s mechanism to implement its “military-civil fusion” national strategy.
Proposals include the creation of joint military-local labs and land-use planning for the construction of military sites, which depict the increased all-around efforts to modernize China’s military. In the case of military-local labs, the local governments will be required to allocate resources – including land, technology, industry, and infrastructure – in order to support military development. They will also be required to make advancement in military technology part of their regional development plans.
Xi also emphasized the collaboration between local governments and the military. He said, “We must strengthen the joint efforts between the military and local [governments], make good use of local advantageous forces and resources, and improve the quality and efficiency of our military construction.”
Over the 14th Five-Year Plan, which covers the period from 2021 to 2025, China’s defense budget has risen each year, with the growth rate gradually increasing (from 6.8 percent growth in 2021 to 7.2 percent in 2025). It is likely that China will further increase its defense budget in the next five-year plan.
Still, China’s official defense budget has remained below 1.5 percent of its GDP for many years, which is lower than the world average. However, it is claimed that China’s real defense spending is much higher than the official budget.
Over the past five years, China’s decline in major arms imports reflects the country’s increasing self-reliance. The country continues to implement policies to pursue further indigenous development of military technology, as seen from the Two Sessions.
However, the drop in exports also indicates that China is not the preferred source for many countries looking to purchase major arms. This trend is influenced partly by political factors and partly by the strong market presence of the United States in the global arms industry. Additionally, it can be argued that China may be looking to bolster its own weapon stockpile due to rising regional tensions and the potential role that the U.S. could play in a conflict, as the U.S. military has been encircling China with a network of military ports and airbases for decades.