Re: China's transport plane capacities
If china is developing an large transport plane by itself, why would it spent money on an russian plane?
Of course, when the day Chinese's large transport takes off, there is no reason not to acquire Il-76 anymore. But it's not like the current deal for more Il-76 is going anywhere anyway, so I disagree that money is being spent on Russian planes.
Besides, china really isnt in a hurry to have transport planes. It has no military assets abroad, and war with other nations isnt coming ANY time soon.
Firstly, Il-76 will need to be replaced sooner or later, so it is a good idea to get a replacement available sooner than later. Secondly, there are far too few Il-76 even for use domestically, so even though China doesn't have military assets abroad, it still needs plenty of transports to fufill domestic needs. Not to mention that AWACS and other special purpose aircraft require platforms as well, platforms that aren't available at the moment. Finally, the experience gained from designing and manufacturing large transports will be invaluable for Chinese aviation industry.
Now, if these explanations don't satisfy you, then I have one more: China designs large transports simply because it can.
For that china needs much more helicopters then transport planes.
They compliment one another, and are not mutually exclusive.
Its more cost-effective to sent ships to do that job. The islands are close to the chinese coast
Even if we assume that this is true, that is not a good reason for China not to design its own transports.
