Sino-Russian Educational Ties Could Boost China’s Military Edge

There has been a visible intensification of educational exchanges between the Russian and Chinese technical institutes in recent months which is indicative of close cooperation between the two countries on military research and development. At the very least such educational exchanges could significantly bolster China’s defense industry in the long run.

Earlier this month, images and videos of two previously unknown Chinese combat aircraft emerged, taking airpower observers across countries by surprise. Going by the media reports and commentaries by aviation experts these aircraft appear to be sixth-generation fighter prototypes undergoing flight tests.

While this is definitely a major milestone for China’s aviation sector, it is also an alarming development for the US and other western countries as well as countries like India whose relations with China also cannot be categorized exactly as friendly without overplaying the recent detente between the two countries.

However, what is even more concerning and is perhaps not getting enough attention is the slowly increasing scope of the Sino-Russian cooperation, which could accelerate the rise of China as a scientific, technological and military superpower.

In September, the US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that China is receiving Russia’s closely guarded military technology on submarines and missiles in return for its “very substantial” military aid for the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

“The capabilities that Russia is providing is support in areas where previously they had been frankly reluctant to engage directly with China,” Campbell told a group of journalists following his meetings with his European Union (EU) and NATO counterparts in Brussels.

“We are concerned about a particular number of military arenas where there appears to be some determination to provide China with greater support.

“That has to do with submarine operations, activities of aeronautical design, including stealth; that also involves capacities on missile capabilities,” he said.

In the following month, in what could be interpreted as a tacit corroboration of the allegations made by the US State Department, the Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov announced through Telegram messaging app that he held “very substantive” talks with China’s central military commission vice chairman, Zhang Youxia.

Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov met with China’s CMC Vice Chair Zhang Youxia in Beijing, marking the 75th anniversary of bilateral relations. During his visit to China, Belousov also met with Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun pic.twitter.com/8uYy19phEJ

— RT (@RT_com) October 15, 2024

Campbell’s allegations of “very substantial” Chinese military aid to Russia in return for the latter’s closely guarded submarine and missile technology, are very different from previous US accusations of Sino-Russian military cooperation which focused on China’s supply of dual-use technologies.

That said, there were some signals of deepening Sino-Russian military cooperation that had begun to emerge shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which were covered by Unravelling Geopolitics earlier this year.

In August 2022, the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MSTU) signed a Memorandum of Scientific and Educational Cooperation with the Russian-Chinese university in Shenzhen, a joint venture, wherein Russia is represented by Moscow State University (MSU) and China by the Beijing Institute of Technology.

As part of the agreement, the engineering faculty of MSTU will impart training to Chinese engineers. The MSTU is said to be the best engineering university in Russia which has been deeply involved in Russian military research and development programs ranging from missile systems and tanks to surveillance technologies.

For years, the Chinese had been trying to obtain such kind of access to Russian engineering institutions, particularly the technical faculty at these institutions, similar to the access they have enjoyed at educational institutions in the US. However, the Russians were being reluctant until their multi-pronged offensive in Ukraine faltered.

In recent months, there has been an uptick in similar such agreements between the Russian and Chinese technical institutes which could have serious ramifications for the countries that are known to have very tense bilateral relationships with China like the US, India, Australia, Japan and South Korea, etc.

Increase In Educational Exchange Programs Between Russia And China

In the month of November alone, there have been at least two educational exchange agreements signed between Russian and Chinese institutes.

In early November, Moscow-based Ufa University of Science and Technology (UUNiT) issued a press release stating its plans to establish a joint institute with China’s Changzhou University which will impart bachelor’s degree in areas including Materials Science and Technology, Mechatronics and Robotics, Chemical Engineering, Petrochemistry and Biotechnology, etc, to Chinese students, and around 30% of the academic disciplines will be taught by leading scientists and UUNiT teachers in English.

Other than that, UUNiT also stated its plans to step up the already existing student exchange arrangements with China’s Nanjing University of Technology, as part of which students and postgraduates from Nanjing Tech University are pursuing internships at UUNiT.

Also, two months before the aforesaid Scientific and Educational Cooperation agreement between the MSTU and Beijing Institute of Technology in 2022, UUNiT had also reached a similar agreement with China’s Shenyang Engineering Institute, as part of which, the two universities are working on the joint educational program ‘Electroenergetics and automation’, where up to 100 students from China are enrolled every year and UUNiT teachers travel to the Shenyang Engineering Institute to teach courses in English.

Moreover, UUNiT is also going to expand the scope of its cooperation with China’s Liaoning University to include the field of science and education in addition to already existing areas such as Economics and Philology.

UUNiT is known to have been involved in research related to power plants and systems used in Russian civil and military aviation, and among its aforesaid exchange programs with Chinese institutes, those with Nanjing Tech University is perhaps the most noteworthy, considering its known involvement in defense-related research and training, particularly in areas of materials science, chemistry, optical engineering and systems engineering.

Shortly after this, on November 12, Russia’s Ural Federal University (UrFU) and China’s Liaoning University of Technology (LNTU) signed an agreement to launch a joint institute, the first intake of which is slated to happen in September 2026. This institute shall impart bachelor’s programs in mechatronics and engineering and master’s programs in mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, electrical power engineering, and applied artificial intelligence.

While the LNTU as an institution is not prominent yet for its involvement in China’s defense related research and development, graduates from this university are known to have been involved in defense-related projects. As for the UrFU, it is well known for imparting training programs to personnel for defense industry of not only Russia but also other countries like Kyrgyzstan.

Potential Ramifications Of China Gaining Access To Russian Engineering Institutes

The aforesaid educational exchanges with Russian engineering institutes could allow Chinese institutes to improve their theoretical as well as practical educational curriculum in various scientific and technical disciplines with miliary application.

For instance, China’s difficulties in producing a high-quality indigenous jet engine are well known. Developing a jet engine requires deep expertise across several disciplines such as combustion, fluid dynamics, materials, metallurgy and control theory applied, tested, and repeated continuously over years.

However, the knowledge related to these underlying technological disciplines is not easily available, as it is a closely guarded property of a handful of corporations in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Russia who have developed it themselves over a long a time.

So, the Chinese defense industrial base resorted to reverse engineering certain Russian jet engines such as the AL-31 which powered its Su-27s, however, the indigenous WS-10 engine that was developed based on these reverse engineering efforts was no match for its Russian counterpart in terms of lifespan or even the power it offered to an aircraft.

This is because, simply gaining access to an advanced foreign developed engine is not enough. The industry which is trying to reverse engineer this engine should also have the knowledge of manufacturing procedures involved in producing components of this engine and then assemble them. Lack thereof can result into production of substandard product, as illustrated in the case of China’s WS-10 engine.

This is where the Chinese engineers/engineering students could benefit from cooperation with the Russian technical institutes. For instance, the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MSTU) and Ural Federal University (UrFU) are part of a training program initiated by Russia’s defense conglomerate, Rostec, for foreign engineers in the manufacture and repair of Russian military equipment.

Rostec’s initiative is part of Russia’s strategy to increase military-technical cooperation with friendly nations like Kyrgyzstan, which could possibly go on to accommodate the engineers from China as well, going by the remarks of Rostec’s Deputy Director General, Nikolay Volobuyev, back in August 2024.

“We are uniting efforts with our partners to achieve technological sovereignty. Engineering and technical personnel are crucial, and to train them, Rostec and leading technical universities in Russia and neighboring countries are creating a unified educational space,” said Volobuyev,

Such training programs could offer Chinese engineers the much-needed apprenticeship experience that is necessary to bring them at par with technical personnel that work in high-tech Western and Russian companies such as GE Aviation, Rolls Royce and United Engine Corporation (UEC), etc.

That said, the ability to replicate a certain technological system is not the same as understanding that particular system with all its intricacies and complexities, such as, the scientific or technical reasons involved in specifying the dimensions of a certain component inside an engine or the choice of material to build this component based on its mechanical strength or chemical composition, etc.

So, even if Chinese engineers do manage to replicate a certain Russian designed engine, they will still encounter difficulties in advancing this design, forcing the Chinese military to be stuck with an outdated design.

Therefore, China needs to prop up its academic institutions as well to produce human capital that can further build up on the knowledge borrowed from foreign designs. This is where, the joint bachelor’s and master’s courses with Russian technical universities could help China by bolstering its ability to organically produce its own human resource in the scientific and technological realm.

Already, China has made significant advancements in areas like hypersonics, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence, in part, due to the access enjoyed by Chinese students and institutes to Western research institutions. Now, with the help of Russia, over which it enjoys a lot of leverage, China is in a position to perfect its capabilities in areas like undersea warfare, aeronautical design and stealth, etc.

So, in the long run, Chinese universities may come to produce scientists and engineers who could manage to break through several technological gridlocks that have for years kept China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from becoming a “completely modernized” and “world-class” force, as has been mandated by the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Tanmay Kadam is a geopolitical observer based in India. He has experience working as a Defense and International Affairs journalist for EurAsian Times. He can be contacted at tanmaykadam700@gmail.com.