SINGAPORE: The last time Singapore held its biennial airshow, China proudly showed off its Wing Loong long-range drone and Z-10 attack helicopter in a symbol of the nation’s technological prowess. This year, it had no war machines on the tarmac.
That’s puzzled at least a dozen defence industry members and analysts Bloomberg spoke with at the Singapore Airshow this week. The absence has been particularly surprising given China’s growing profile in weaponry such as the JF-17, the jointly-developed fighter jet that played a key role in last year’s brief conflict between Pakistan and India.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore. That’s especially so because Chinese state media appears “to be pushing certain narratives about arms sales, especially the reported popularity of the JF-17,” Koh said.
China wasn’t entirely absent at Asia’s biggest airshow. State-owned Avic and Catic led the way representing China’s arms industry, with an aerial display of Avic’s J-10 fighters and Catic showing off its high-end J-35 stealth fighter in its booth. Representatives for Avic and Catic at the conference declined to comment.
China’s military aerobatics team, Bayi, also performed during the show, and the J-10 fighter jets flew in to Singapore using aerial refuelling for the first time, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.
Still, no major deals involving Chinese firms were announced during the show. That’s in spite of an Indonesian delegation meeting with Catic on Wednesday, according to a company schedule seen by Bloomberg News.
