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From Russia with guns: why is Southeast Asia buying arms from Moscow, not Washington?
- Though it lags only the US in global arms sales, Russia is the top supplier to Southeast Asia, with US$6.6 billion sold between 2010 and 2017
- Nations in the region are spending more on defence as a hedge against China’s rise, particularly those involved in disputes in the South China Sea
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Near the People’s Air Force Base in the port city of Vung Tau, Vietnam, a state-of-the-art helicopter engine maintenance and repair facility opened this April to service Russian-made helicopters.
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Though Moscow does not often give its arms customers the ability to maintain and repair Russian-made equipment at home, the Vung Tau helicopter facility is part of an effort to broaden the scope of Russia’s prolific arms sales in Southeast Asia.
Viktor Kladov, director for international cooperation at Russian state-backed military industrial giant Rostec, which built the facility, said the firm planned to expand its helicopter repair and support services across the region. Vietnam bought 78 per cent of Russia’s arms exports to Southeast Asia from 2010 to 2017, including six Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, warships and fighter jets.
Though it lags only the United States in global arms sales, Russia is the top supplier of arms to Southeast Asia. The region bought US$6.6 billion of Russian arms between 2010 and 2017, accounting for more than 12 per cent of Russia’s sales, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), a Swedish think tank that publishes global arms tracking data.
Southeast Asian defence purchases from the US over the same period were US$4.5 billion, or about 6 per cent of US global arms sales, according to Sipri. Asia accounted for 40 per cent of total global arms purchases from 2014 to 2018.
Asean nations are bulking up their arms supplies in large part to counter China’s rising influence in the region, analysts say. This is the case particularly for nations with territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea – like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
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