When it comes to Zhuhai Air Show, the first thing that comes to mind may be the display of our country's military power to deter opponents - you have and have, and I have the ones you don't have. It's not that I'm afraid of you but that I save face for you...
Furthermore, it's a large-scale arms sales event.
In fact, whether it is to show military strength or promote arms trade negotiations, although China belongs to the home court, the Zhuhai Air Show is also an international air show.
For example, this air show, more than 740 companies from 43 countries (regions) participated in the exhibition online and offline.
A traditional big player in previous Zhuhai Air Shows is our northern neighbor, Russia.
For this Zhuhai Air Show, the Russian bears are still very attentive. The "dry goods" they present are all the things they think are the most "fashionable" at the moment - fighter jets include Su-35, MiG-35, and even the fifth-generation Su-57 are here; large aircraft include Il-76 transport aircraft, Il-78 refueling aircraft; helicopters have Ka-52 and Mi-171; air defense weapons include S-400; armored products also bring BTR-MDM multi-purpose armored personnel carriers, BMD-4M airborne combat vehicles, etc.
What is embarrassing is that while Chinese companies are constantly harvesting "big orders", Russia's booths seem much more deserted. "Old customers" like India and Vietnam have no strong desire to buy.
Russian booth
In fact, as early as the first few years, India, the "big buyer" of Russian arms, had already become suspicious of Russian-made arms - spending a lot of US dollars, and in the end they bought it all seem to be the parallel goods that are not good (monkey version)?
For example, in the air battle during the Indian-Pakistan border conflict in February 2019, the Pakistan Air Force used the JF-17 fighter jet to shoot down an Indian Su-30 fighter jet.
At first, everyone thought it was just an Indian pilot.
Unexpectedly, on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield in 2022, the Su-30 was easily shot down by the Ukrainian army.
The wreckage of Su-30 shot down by the Ukrainian army
Moreover, the Ukrainians also made a batch of commemorative keychains with fragments of Su-30 and sold them to the public in a high-profile manner.
It can be said that this operation is quite strong, both harmful and insulting.
is these keychains
Generally speaking, in addition to the Su-57 fighter jets, almost all types of fighter jets that the Russian army participated in the "special military operations" have been recorded being shot down.
Chernigov's Su-34 wreckage. According to Ukrainian media reports, this is a local retired old man named Valeri Fedorovic shot down with a rifle. It seems that the current Russian-Ukrainian battlefield has also indirectly confirmed that in 2019, not only Indian pilots were not good, maybe... this Su-30 is not good either.
also has heavy armed helicopters such as Ka-52 and Mi-28. Russia has always cared about it and has rejected China's purchase.
What can be slap in the face is that as of the end of October, 23 Ka-52s have been shot down on the Ukrainian battlefield. Especially on October 12, Ukraine actually shot down four card-52s in 18 minutes in a record time!
The downed card-52
has such an "undecent" record. Now let alone selling it to China, even India and Vietnam are unwilling to ask for it.
What's more, today's China has its own Z-20 general-purpose helicopter.
Of course, you can say that Ukraine's "records" mainly rely on the support of NATO's information intelligence system, but at the same time, it seems that it has to be admitted that modern wars are no longer "steel torrents" for each other, but rather information and systematic technology wars.
Look at Russia's active military equipment. Most of them are improved or developed based on Soviet technology. is a product of the era of heavy mechanization. Although the engine quality is still quite good, in terms of electronicization, informatization and intelligence, is seriously out of touch with the times, especially the shortcomings in informatization, which are fully exposed on the battlefield of Russia and Ukraine. The Russian army looks blind and dumb in the face of the reconnaissance and strike network composed of NATO satellites, early warning aircraft, drones, personal mobile phones, and monitoring equipment.
So, just a "Haimas" rocket launcher and a "Starlink" satellite system have already made the Russian army feel overwhelmed.
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Thinking back then, the aviation industry of New China was almost the same as the Soviet Union hand in hand. So in Russia's stereotype, China's aviation industry is the little brother behind Russia. It was, now, and in the future.
Under the influence of this mentality, no matter what advanced aviation equipment China displays at the air show, Russia will always automatically convert it into the version they "think" in their minds.
Even though facts have proved that military is an extension of economic power, China, as the world's second largest economy, has "rolled up" the global military trade market. Coupled with the performance of "losing skills" on the battlefield of Ukraine, the era when Russia continues to drink and eat meat lies on the Soviet Union's technical foundation, seems to be gone forever.
Russia's self-produced Seahawk-10 drone can be called "Made in All Nations". In addition to foreign chips and sensors, Japanese engines and Logitech's game controllers are also used as controllers
Finally, let's talk about the controversial promotional video played by Russia's Defense Industry Group at the exhibition site. The protagonist of the
promotional video is the MiG-35 fighter jet, which shows the scene of the MiG-35 using anti-ship missiles to attack warships. The problem lies in the fact that this warship hit by the MiG-35 looks very similar to our country's 052D destroyer. After the promotional video was filmed and posted online, it immediately aroused dissatisfaction among a large number of Chinese netizens, believing that this was Russia deliberately "smashing the situation".
But then, the Russian side gave an explanation.
According to convention, the promotional videos of their weapons exhibitions are outsourced to Indian companies to produce because their fees are cheap and have always been the main target of government procurement in Russian video production.
After all, the cost of producing this type of video is very high, and the money is usually calculated in seconds. The Russian bear family is poor, so you can save as much as you can.
So, as we say, you get what you pay for, India charges cheaper, but the corresponding production methods will be rougher, and the military certification will naturally not be very serious. There are many three-dimensional models on the Internet nowadays, so it is possible to just use one of them.
objectively watch, the mistakes of such military propaganda films are not uncommon, and there is no need to over-interpret it.
Of course, some people will still think that the above explanation is a kind of "blame-shifting" for Russian bears. But whether this is intentional or unintentional, the Russians made this mistake at the Zhuhai Air Show, which seems to be quite a loss of their identity as a great power.
