The Politics of Purchases: Explaining the Resilient Demand for Chinese Arms

The post-Cold War arms market has witnessed China’s remarkable rise as an arms exporter. Yet, Chinese armaments and platforms often perform poorly in the field, raising questions about countries’ motivations for continuing to purchase them. This study investigates two competing theories for the surprising resilience of China’s arms customer base. The first revolves around China’s willingness and ability to provide inexpensive weapons indiscriminately and quickly to its buyers, and the second holds that these arms purchases are simply an extension of purchasers’ policy preferences and domestic institutions. An analysis of global data on Chinese arms deals from 2005 to 2020 reveals support for the latter theory: countries are repeatedly purchasing Chinese arms because they share China’s preferences and have domestic regimes that align closely with Beijing’s. The results imply limited prospects for crowding China out of the arms export market through faster timelines and other mechanical improvements to sellers’ policies and procedures.