More about Chinese Tu-22Ms

Link: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/tu-22m.htm

On 28 June 2004 a Hong Kong television website reported that China had formalized plans to acquire Russian Backfire supersonic long-range bombers. The report was on Hong Kong’s Feng Huang Wang WWW-Text in Chinese, the web site of pro-Beijing Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Ltd. The Hong Kong newspaper Cheng Pao reported that a resolution passed at the 10th CPC party congress of the PLA Air Force in May 2004, included conclusions on the strategic positioning of China’s air force. The air force should be a strategic air force, capable of operations in all aerial territories [quan kong jiang zuo zhan] and long-range response. The news sources said long-range bombers constitute the biggest technical obstacle China will face in building a strategic air force. Indigenous development and the import of Russian Backfire supersonic long-range bombers are “already put on the agenda.”

Of course, this assumes that Russia will either give away some of its Backfires (which it won’t) or build new ones for China (which I doubt). I don’t see what the difference in the Russian position would be now, they’d just say no again.

Its usefulness would depend on Russia’s willingness to sell long-range supersonic anti-shipping missiles, such as the 300-mile-range Kh-22.

Which is forbidden by the MTCR, so they’d have to be export missiles with much less range than ~400km.