How the Trump Administration Can Limit China’s Arms Exports

Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine has altered the global arms market in ways not seen since the end of the Cold War, creating challenges and opportunities for arms exporters and importers alike. Russian arms exports are down, global defense spending is up, and alternative arms exporters are keen to take advantage of this new market reality. For countries that previously relied on Russia to equip their militaries, these are perilous times. Some have complained about a lack of spare parts while others have been asked to sell back kit to Moscow. One beneficiary of this new dynamic is China, which can offer legacy purchasers of Russian kit options from a similar family of equipment. And Beijing has ample motivation to capitalize on this turn of events, as increasing arms revenue is key to China’s goal of military modernization.

The United States should take this new reality into account and use a combination of bilateral and multilateral tools to limit China’s growth as an arms exporter. Doing so requires a two-pronged approach: focus on curtailing China’s ability to produce and export quality arms, while increasing pressure on countries considering buying Chinese weapons. The latter requires Washington to take a holistic view to arms transfers. U.S. arms sales have increased exponentially since 2022, but the limits of its defense-industrial base means Washington simply cannot answer the demands of every customer. When the United States is not best positioned to box China out, it should look to allies and partners to pick up the slack.

China’s Small But Growing Role as an Arms Exporter

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Defense described China as the fastest growing arms exporter of the previous 15 years. While its overall market share remains limited, China has cemented itself as a top five global arms exporter, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, behind the United States, Russia, and France. China has exported arms to nearly 40 countries in the past two decades, with the main recipients being Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Algeria. Beijing’s leading exports are aircraft, ships, armored vehicles, missiles, and air defense systems.

In recent years, China has enthusiastically pursued new arms markets across the globe. In 2020, Serbia purchased an advanced Chinese air defense system. marking the first major sale to a European country in years. In 2021, Beijing began aggressively marketing its JF-17 fighter jet to Argentina. At the 2024 World Defense Show in Saudi Arabia, China sent nearly 40 arms firms to participate for the first time under one banner, dubbed “China Defense.” Chinese pilots also demonstrated the J-10 fighter jet at the show. At the Egypt Air Show in September 2024, Chinese pilots again flew the J-10 as well as the Y-20 transport jet. This was reportedly the first time the J-10 was demonstrated in Africa and the first time the Y-20 was demonstrated abroad.

Like other major arms exporters, China’s arms sales trajectory has mirrored its military modernization. As countries develop and field more equipment, they tend to look to sell excess or older platforms to drive revenue growth and future modernization efforts, a reality that is heightened in times of great-power competition, as Keith Carter of the U.S. Naval War College has noted. The platforms China has marketed in recent years echo this pattern. As China’s indigenous fighter jet production capabilities have evolved, Beijing has pushed more of its older and less sophisticated fighters to the market. For years, China’s main fighter jet export was the JF-17, which it co-produced with Pakistan and sold to Myanmar, Nigeria, and Iraq. In 2022, however, China sold its indigenously produced J-10 multi-role fighter jet to Pakistan in its first-ever export of the new model. Rumors are swirling that Egypt, which had previously walked away from a purchase of Russian Su-35 fighter jets, is finalizing a deal for J-10s with China. Elsewhere, the United Arab Emirates in 2022 purchased the Chinese L-15 trainer jet, a sale that has reportedly intrigued Moroccan officials.

Beijing tends to be a shrewd marketer of its weaponry. It understands that many countries choose not to buy significant quantities from China due to political reasons. So Beijing offers terms with flexible payments, often at a lower price point and with fewer restrictions in place than other Western suppliers. In the Middle East, Chinese officials accurately noticed a gap in the market left by the biggest external supplier, the United States. Despite its overwhelming market share as an arms exporter to the region, Washington has to date withheld select platforms such as armed drones from its Arab partners, despite repeated requests. Jordan’s King Abdullah II, for instance, had routinely asked the United States for armed MQ-1 drones to help patrol his borders at the height of the campaign against the Islamic State in 2015. When the United States denied that request the same year, Jordan bought CH-4 armed drones from China instead. In fact, Chinese armed drones have sprouted up across the region, including among traditional U.S. customers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.

The U.S. Toolkit for Limiting China’s Arms Exports

Countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have been the primary buyers of Chinese arms exports. To prevent Beijing from expanding its reach, the Trump administration should consider two main lines of effort. The first — and more obvious — method is to go after the supplier.

The Trump administration can continue to try to stymie the development of China’s defense-industrial base through a wide range of sanctions and other economic tools. The first Trump administration issued Executive Order 13959 in November 2020, which prohibited any transactions in publicly traded securities with Chinese military companies. This was followed by the Biden administration’s Executive Order 14032 the following June, which echoed the Trump administration’s order in banning the purchase or trade of any securities to companies that “operate or have operated in the defense and related materiel sector or the surveillance technology sector of the economy of the PRC [People’s Republic of China].” Through the Department of Commerce, the Biden administration likewise issued a series of increasing restrictions on the sale or transfer of advanced computer chips to China to limit, in part, the development of China’s defense-industrial base. Under Biden, the United States also sanctioned Chinese military firms accused of supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine. Other efforts have languished in Congress, however, such as the bipartisan Chinese Military and Surveillance Company Sanctions Act of 2023 and the Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act of 2024, both of which seek to limit further U.S.-origin financial assets supporting the Chinese defense industry.

The second line of effort limit Chinese arms exports is targeting the customer. By going after customers and potential recipients of Chinese materiel, the United States can try to shrink the market space for Beijing. Doing so could feature a delicate balance between carrots and sticks. The former was a feature of the first Trump administration’s energetic arms transfer policies. Arms sales were a key fixture in President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda. The White House famously overrode congressional efforts to stop a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2019. By the end of the administration, the State Department was taking additional steps to expand the number of platforms ready for export, such as announcing a revision to the Missile Technology Control Regime, thereby opening up the potential to sell armed drones to more countries. This enabled offering the Emiratis MQ-9 armed drones in 2020, which would have made the United Arab Emirates the first Arab country to receive the U.S. platform. That deal ultimately fell through in part due to revelations of the Emiratis’ growing security ties with China.

Not all of the carrots the Trump administration can offer have to be U.S.-made, however. In this new global arms market, ramping up domestic production — as both the Biden and Trump administrations desired — will not be enough to meet the demand of every partner. But that shouldn’t always be the goal. Boxing out China from a lucrative contract should be the top priority, and if the United States isn’t the best-equipped supplier to meet the demand then Washington should coordinate with its allies and partners to see who is. Allies such as France, the United Kingdom, and Italy are established major arms exporters, while others like Israel and South Korea are ascendant on the international arms market. Some have already faced off with China: South Korea’s FA-50 light attack fighter jet beat out China’s JF-17 for Malaysia’s roughly billion-dollar deal in 2023. When the United States cannot meet the demand of a potential buyer, Washington should get creative to ensure China cannot either.

Of course, the Trump administration has plenty of potential sticks to deter would-be purchasers of Chinese kit. One such option could be expanding the existing authorities the United States has in countering Russian arms exports abroad. In 2017, Congress passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which imposed a litany of restrictions against Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The law included a section requiring the president to impose sanctions on any person that engages in a “significant transaction with a person that is part of, or operates for or on behalf of, the defense or intelligence sectors” of Russia. Under the act, sanctions were levied against Turkey in 2020 after Ankara purchased the Russian S-400 air defense system. There are no similar clauses regarding transactions with China’s defense or intelligence sectors in the current law. The Trump administration and Congress could consider amending the existing legislation to include such deals with China.

In addition, the U.S. government could initiate an interagency effort to further limit China’s arms exports. As a first step, the Defense Department and the intelligence community should establish a common understanding of the likeliest Chinese platforms to appear on the global arms market in the near future. This could manifest in an annual classified assessment of the current Chinese weapons and equipment on the market, their technical aspects and capabilities, and any security concerns regarding their potential to collect intelligence on U.S. assets. The assessment would also include the latest intelligence on Chinese platforms being developed and readied for export. Thereafter, the State and Defense Departments could compile information from the security cooperation offices at U.S. embassies worldwide to identify Chinese customers and formulate a strategy to proactively dissuade potential purchases.

From a buyer’s perspective, Chinese weapons can be appealing for a variety of reasons, including generally lower costs, faster delivery times, and looser restrictions on use. However, many potential customers are either unaware of or agnostic about the second- and third-order effects that are unique to buying Chinese kit. Consequences can range from a lack of accompanying training materials (some arms sales come with instructions only in Chinese) to a lack of back-end maintenance support. For example, Iraq had to sideline its entire fleet of CH-4 drones during its campaign against the Islamic State because China was late in sending spare parts. U.S. engagement with would-be customers of Chinese equipment that is consistent and transparent in warning of the possible pitfalls of such a deal can go a long way in dissuading a potential purchase.

Conclusion

While China’s arms sales abroad are modest compared to the United States, its aspirations are not. Chinese leaders and defense experts assume they need to secure external customers to drive growth. The United States needs a comprehensive strategy to not only compete with China in the Indo-Pacific, but globally. Besides expanding the U.S. defense-industrial base, Washington can limit China’s arms sales through a balance of carrots and sticks. An approach that continues to leverage America’s strength in the global arms market, coordinates export strategies with willing partner countries when the U.S. position is diminished, and issues clear warnings to purchasers of Chinese weapons and equipment is an effective approach for stunting Beijing’s growth as an arms exporter.

Grant Rumley is the Meisel Goldberger Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served as a policy advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense during the Trump and Biden administrations.

Image: N509FZ via Wikimedia Commons.