There is an awful lot of material science that right now is restricted to the military that China has no access to.
a lot of that is due to Western company's fear of Chinese corporate espionage rather than military. I think that material science would be restricted regardless of whether EU embargo was on. I can't see Boeing or Airbus wanting China to actually catch up to their level of material science. Although recently, Airbus has contracted HAIG to produce composite material for them.
Basically, my prior mumbling was trying to say that they develop things like material science through domestic RnD + foreign development. It's China's basic way of getting Western technology through playing one off against other + having competitive production base.
In another thread there is some talk of a hypersonic air breather supposedly soon to appear from China. We have flown hypersonic test vehicles for many decades in the US, as far back as the X-15, and including a number of interesting test articles, but there remain even today some major hurdles in terms of material science and other technologies before a hypersonic vehicle can be made reliable enough and inexpensive enough to be mass produced as a weapon. China to my knowledge has never even demonstrated a hypersonic test vehicle. I don't mean a model on a stand at some arms expo or airshow, but actual hardware flown in an operationally relevant environment. What could they know? Whatever it is, they have to learn it from foreigners for now, and that is a big part of the point of the embargo.
well, that's the argument all along right? China does not have x developed, y developed. So, if we do not sell them the technology, then we can stunt the growth. But it seems at least from my view that this has not happened. It just forced China to put more money in RnD. The most important things they've learnt from the West are production methodologies, project management and effective RnD programs. So from that point of view, even if you do not sell them the product, they will still get it eventually from their own RnD + ToT with the West.
China saves money by stealing our engineering and material science. Everyone in the business knows this. The embargo slows down the acquisition of advanced technologies drives up the cost of their weapons by forcing them to do their own research and that cuts into what they can afford to buy in a major way.
In order for China to catch up to US (it's eventual goal), it will have to develop its own generation of engineers. The embargo may have driven up the cost of developing their own weapon system, but it has also produced an industry that is far more capable of developing its own weapon systems. India has had no embargo, but has that really helped its domestic industry? No. In the end, do you want to just get the weapons or have an industry that's capable of developing its own weapons? I think anyone would go for the latter.
The Europeans have no skin in the game, only the US and Japan are faced with the prospect of a military confrontation with China. But the EU depends on the US for quite a few military capabilities they lack, and the US forces them to choose sides. None of this suddenly changes with the change of the calendar.
The EU folding it's tent? Laughable. The west only looks on the verge of falling apart because we don't censor our critics like many other non-western nations do. There is a basic strength in the ownership of property, a free press and elected government that you greatly underestimate. People in a democracy have a stake in their politicians and their policies, which is not the case in authoritarian regimes. When you hear vocal critics in a dictatorship, you know the government is in trouble. When you hear critics in a democracy, all is well.
btw, I'm not saying all of this stuff to criticize democracy. Please don't go there.
I was simply pointing to the fact that there are serious structural problems in EU countries that will cause numerous countries to bankrupt (including Italy and Spain) over the next couple of years, because Germany can't afford to bail out economies that large. At which point, they will face a tough choice with Euro currency between the countries who would like to print to lower their debt (PIIGS countries) and countries that want to keep its value. My view is that Euro will fall apart or at least not survive amongst all of the current EU countries. Now, I might be overstepping in saying that it will cause the collapse of EU, but I don't think it will be as integrated as it currently is, which could easily mean that they would have independent arms embargo policies.
