Bangladesh appears unhappy with the quality of military supplies from Beijing.
China uses the armaments supply instrument as an instrumentum regni in Asia, which means it is trying to bind some countries that are dependent on it militarily. However, the very low quality of the equipment produced, below Western standards, seems to undermine this project.
One example is Bangladesh, whose armed forces are supplied with Chinese-made equipment.
After a war with Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh gained independence. To keep it, he had to upgrade his military tools. Given the far from prosperous economic situation, Dhaka was forced to turn to the Chinese, who practiced significantly cheaper prices than Westerners. Because of this, the army acquired light weapons, artillery, and armored vehicles made (mostly copied) by Norinco.
Currently, the Dhaka government is running an armored component upgrade program. In 2011, it bought the Chinese MBT-2000 tank, built by Norinco starting from the Type 90 IIM tank, and is also upgrading 170 Type 59 tanks to the Type 59G standard. More recently they have converted the Type 69 fleet to the standard Type 69IIG.
To modernize the artillery and replace the Chinese-made parts, the army acquired the 155/52 mm Serbian self-propelled rotor Nora B-52.
China has provided a total of US$3 billion worth of defense equipment to Bangladesh over the period 2011-2020. Beijing is also in the process of setting up a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) center and submarine base in Bangladesh. The naval base near the village of Magnama in the province of Cox’s Bazar will have a strategic value of the highest value as it will be located about 70 km from the border with Myanmar in the Pekua Upazila area overlooking the Kutubdia canal. All of this is likely related to the Dhaka Navy’s purchase of two Chinese Ming-class (Type 035G) submarines.
Recently, the Bangladeshi Army expressed its displeasure with Norinco’s supply of tank ammunition and rejected it as it was not being tested.
China Precision Machinery Import Export Company (CPMIEC) also supplied Bangladesh with some equipment related to the HQ-7 short-range surface-to-air missiles.
However, several problems were reported regarding transport vehicles and missiles, including the engine, communications system, and infrared guidance device.
The Bangladeshi Navy also said it was dissatisfied with China Shipbuilding & Offshore International’s radars.
The slowdown in China’s economy and the consequent fall in growth over the past two years (the IMF has put China’s growth at 3.3% in 2022, the lowest result in the last 40 years) suggests that the industrial apparatus of China is struggling Beijing does not go well condition.
Obviously, this also affects the quality (never high anyway) of military equipment production.
Photo: Bangladesh Army