China, Russia: An Evolving Defense Relationship

Russian military sales to China fell off sharply in 2007, according to the latest numbers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. While these figures are necessarily estimates — especially with less-than-transparent Chinese practices — and can vary significantly from year to year, the 2007 Russia-to-China figures are the lowest in nearly a decade, and are congruent with larger trends in Beijing's military-industrial capacity.