Chinese Aviation Industry

gelgoog said:

China is doing something similar to what they did with the high speed train program. Most of those parts, with the exception of the engines, are being made in joint ventures in China with Western firms. And there is also a program to replace the engines with the native CJ-1000 engine. Eventually China will make its own subsystems. The fact is China could make its own subsystems if they wanted to. The Y-20 uses all Chinese components and the technological difficulty in the subsystems is roughly the same. It is just that they would not be certified for operations by EASA or the FAA and in the case of the engines they would be of an older generation.

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sahureka said:

and therefore the risk of possible sanctions persists for commercial aircraft of Chinese domestic design as long as they have many components made in countries that could become commercially hostile.
MA-700 is an example of this, when "friends" realized that it could be a dangerous competitor they vetoed the sale of PW150 engines, this did not stop the MA-700, but it had a huge delay.
Sanctions or bans are problems, but they are often the right input to independently develop your own projects, in this case a made in China aircraft with made in China engines.
This example and what happened to the Russians should have taught us that it can become dangerous for a commercial aircraft design to have too many important components of foreign origin.
Therefore, with the technical and economic capabilities, China could evaluate, for example, the realization of the C-919 in two versions,
the first, the current one, with foreign components and therefore having its own certifications and from EASA and FAA certifications to fly in those countries;
The second version to be made only with Chinese components, and use these aircraft on the national territory and in those friendly countries where they recognize each other
with Chinese certification.
.

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latenlazy said:

All the parts are made in China. They’re just “owned” by foreign firms.

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gelgoog said:

The engines are definitively not made in China. At least some of the other components are made in joint ventures with Chinese companies, but I do not know if that is all of those components or not.

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The aviation industry held the opening of the Civil Aircraft Airborne System Engineering Center​

On the morning of March 17, the aviation industry held the unveiling of the

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(hereinafter referred to as the Engineering Center) in Shanghai. Tian Yulong, member of the Party Group and chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Zhang Yanzhong, director of the National Special Expert Advisory Committee of the National Aircraft Special Advisory Committee and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Hao Zhaoping, deputy secretary and general manager of the Aviation Industry Party Group, attended the event and delivered speeches, and also delivered speeches with Liu Duo, deputy mayor of Shanghai, Jing Xuhua, director of the National Defense Department of the Ministry of Finance, and Xie, director of the Capital Bureau of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Zhou Yong, Zhu Yiji, Director of the Fourth Department of the System of the Bureau of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, Xu Feng, Deputy Director of the Airworthiness Department of the Civil Aviation Administration, Wu Yue, Director of the

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Science and Technology Committee, and Wang Jiangang, Secretary of the

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Party Committee and Chairman of the

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jointly completed the opening of the project center. The event was presided over by He Shengqiang, a member of the aviation industry party group and deputy general manager.

Hao Zhaoping pointed out that the establishment of the engineering center is a strategic measure for the aviation industry to thoroughly implement the national aircraft strategy guided by the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. He stressed: First, we should take the initiative to undertake the strategic layout of national regional development, based on the location advantages of the Yangtze River Delta and the development foundation of the large aircraft industry, deepen the professional integration of civil aircraft airborne fields, and gather forces to carry out engineering research and technological innovation; second, we should accelerate the construction of engineering centers and accelerate the construction of an open and collaborative civil aircraft innovation system. Plan to promote the high-quality development of the civil aircraft carrier industry; Third, we should take the establishment of the engineering center as a new starting point, accelerate the integration into the construction of the "five centers" in Shanghai, and build a new pattern for the development of civil aircraft aircraft systems.

Zhang Yanzhong said that the establishment of an engineering center by the Aviation Industry Group in Shanghai is a major organizational and institutional change in the airborne field. It fully shows that the Aviation Industry Group connects with the national major strategic regional layout, gives full play to its respective advantages with Shanghai, and works together to help the flying in accordance with the principles of collaborative innovation, layout optimization and resource sharing. With the confidence and determination for the high-quality development of the aircraft industry and airborne system industry, I hope that the engineering center must adhere to scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement, assume the main responsibility for the development of the national civil aircraft airborne system industry and products, and as a leading enterprise, strive to establish and improve the airborne industrial chain supply chain, and promote the vigorous development of the national large aircraft industry.

Tian Yulong pointed out that the official establishment of the engineering center is a major progress made by the Aviation Industry Group and Shanghai in implementing the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, implementing the strategic deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and promoting the development of large aircraft. It is also a deepening the reform of the aviation industry system, strengthening the national strategic scientific and technological force, and optimizing the allocation of innovative funds. Important measures of the source. It is hoped that in the follow-up work, the engineering center will keep in mind its mission, have the courage to take responsibility, persevere and continue to tackle key problems, vigorously cooperate and innovate in clusters, and build an airborne system industrial cluster in Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta as soon as possible.

As a secondary unit of the aviation industry, the

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will comprehensively serve the national strategy, build scientific and technological innovation capabilities of civil aircraft airborne systems, promote the construction of a safe and efficient civil aircraft aircraft industry chain supply chain, and become a civil aircraft aircraft aircraft system integrator with international competitiveness and sustainable development capabilities.

More than 40 units and more than 200 people participated in the unveiling activities, including the production promotion center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Airworthiness and approval center of the Civil Aviation Administration Bureau, the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Minhang District, Wujing Town, Shanghai Zhongguang Nuclear Technology Company and the aviation industry-related general assistant executives, headquarters departments, directly affiliated units and member units.

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The United States and its allies have already decided to decouple from China when it comes to semiconductors and telecommunications systems. Jetliner manufacturing would be a logical next step. After all, China’s vaunted commercial transports—the MA700 regional turboprop transport, ARJ21 regional jet, C919 narrow-body passenger plane, and proposed CR929 wide-body are heavily dependent upon imported Western technologies and systems.

As a consequence of the limited number of jet engine suppliers, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China’s (COMAC) ARJ21 regional jet and C919 are both powered by GE or GE/Safran engines, imported from the United States. For the ARJ21, there is no backup plan to GE’s CF34 engine.

For the C919, China is developing its CJ-1000A engine as an alternative to the GE/Safran Leap-1C, but it won’t enter service until the end of the decade. And the CJ-1000A is also heavily dependent upon key imported Western technologies. Like China’s jetliners, China’s first attempt at a commercial engine could easily be shut down with technology embargoes.

Killing the current CJ-1000 project would bring China back to the jet engine drawing board. Predictably, the Chinese government has been trying to develop its own engine industry independent of imported components, a process involving intellectual property theft and other desperate measures. But again, the track record of commercial jet engine development outside the United States and U.K. is not encouraging.

The MEU List’s application to aerospace exports to China is somewhat opaque, perhaps deliberately. All of China’s thousands of Western jets use U.S. technology. While its parent companies are on the MEU List, COMAC itself is not. But clarifying the situation, by putting COMAC directly on the MEU List, would be a very simple—and economically devastating—move.

China’s MA700 aircraft provides a useful example of how jetliner decoupling would unfold. In September 2021, Canada—in conjunction with the United States—suddenly denied export licenses for the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150 engine used on this 70-seat airliner. This meant that China’s national 70-seat regional turboprop transport, in development since 2007, was dead in its tracks.

Since then, the MA700 has effectively been airbrushed out of China’s aviation plans, like a disgraced Politburo member erased from Soviet documents. A prototype might have flown sometime last year, possibly with a few engines that had already been imported, but right now this aircraft has no future without access to new production engines.

Killing these programs would represent more than just billions in sunk costs (and probably unemployed workers). It would also mean that China would have no choice but to keep importing Western jets from Airbus and Boeing. The Russian jetliner industry, long dormant but seeking revival, has been hobbled by sanctions and corruption, and doesn’t appear able to build jetliners for internal use, let alone export.

And it isn’t as though China can directly retaliate. Chinese industry plays a negligible role in Western jet-makers’ supply chains (although it does play a more significant role in maintenance, repair, and overhaul work; and in global jetliner finance). Jetliner decoupling, for the most part, would only hurt China’s aviation industry, not the West’s.

Therefore, Chinese officials would face a day of reckoning. The autarkic Made in China 2025 policies espoused by Xi would be exposed as extremely limited, or even a complete fantasy. China would have a simple choice: rethink selling weapons to Russia or admit that plans for a self-reliant national aviation industry are untenable, at least for the next 12 to 15 years.

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Lethe said:

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The stuff about globalised supply chains vs. autarky strikes me as a red herring. You only need globalised supply chains if you have a globalised market. Making commercial aircraft is not particularly difficult; what is difficult is making aircraft that can compete with the world's best at the 95th percentile across the various bean counting metrics that are critical to commercial operations (SFC, MTBO, etc.) and integrate with existing international institutions and regulatory structures. If you balkanize the market by cutting China off from the west, those imperatives disappear and even "third-rate" domestic solutions become viable, just as they have always been for the military.

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sahureka said:

for what now and given the precedents with other nations, to which they have also sanctioned commercial aviation by prohibiting support and putting flight safety at risk, it would be appropriate not tomorrow, but today, to put into practice every solution to prevent any situation that any sanctions may lead to commercial transportation in China .

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Lethe said:

The stuff about globalised supply chains vs. autarky strikes me as a red herring. You only need globalised supply chains if you have a globalised market. Making commercial aircraft is not particularly difficult; what is difficult is making aircraft that can compete with the world's best at the 95th percentile across the various bean counting metrics that are critical to commercial operations (SFC, MTBO, etc.) and integrate with existing international institutions and regulatory structures. If you balkanize the market by cutting China off from the west, those imperatives disappear and even "third-rate" domestic solutions become viable, just as they have always been for the military.

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