LONDON – According to a report from RT, the Chinese Government is readying up plans to supply Russia with spare parts for aircraft due to sanctions caused by the Ukraine Crisis.
The Chinese Ambassador to Moscow Zhang Hanhui said the following to TASS yesterday:
“We are ready to supply spare parts to Russia, we will set up the cooperation. Now, [airlines] are working [on this], they have certain channels, there are no restrictions on the part of China”.
A U-Turn from China?
This does appear to be somewhat of a u-turn by the Chinese Government as companies in the region refused to supply Russian airlines with these parts.
Such a concern was over the fact that the United States may impose a second-stage version of sanctions on those companies.
The United States Government is yet to respond to this announcement by China, and will no doubt come with some form of retaliation in the coming days.
For Russia, this is some form of good news for its aviation sector, as the main plan of action was to rely more on Russian-built aircraft such as the Sukhoi SuperJet.
Russia Begins Aircraft Production to Replace Boeing & Airbus Aircraft…
The United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) has begun production of 20 Tupolev TU-214 aircraft as part of a production program that will replace Boeing & Airbus aircraft.
According to UAC’s CEO, Yuri Slyusar, production is going to scale up substantially:
“We are to scale up [serial production] shortly. We have already started production of twenty Tu-214 airplanes”, the CEO said to TASS.
It is understood that the TU-214 program in particular has been set up to last the next couple of years.
Slyusar also added that it aims to increase the production rate for the Ilyushin IL-96 long-haul aircraft as well as for the IL-76 transport jet.
With Russia looking to replace Western-manufactured aircraft with their own, this is another indication of the dire straits Russia finds with the West politically.
Even so, the only reason that UAC would ramp up production is that Russian carriers are looking to get rid of such Western aircraft as a political move.
Because, otherwise, this sort of motion wouldn’t make sense.
A couple of months ago, President Putin signed into law that all leased aircraft belong to Russian carriers, in a massive nationalization-based move.
This was of course based on the leasing companies in the West being on the brink of losing up to $10bn worth of assets.
Such a battle has been lost already, with leasing giant AerCap filing a $3.5bn insurance claim for aircraft stuck or stolen in Russia.
Overall…
In this case, it does appear that China is willing to take the risk against potential retaliation from the U.S and the West by supplying these parts to Russia.
Such a u-turn does not come as a surprising one, especially with the two country’s strong relationship over the last few decades.
All eyes are now on the West to see what sort of response will be formulated and whether that will involve further trade sanctions for China now.
