I believe the WS-13 is the Southern Aero-Engine Co. product that was mentioned before as a competitor to the Kunlun engine. Not much is known of it.

Now the Kunlun core project, OTOH, had quite a bit of publicity.

The Kunlun II is a turbojet designed for the J-7 and J-8II. It actually has a dry thrust that is greater than the RD-93. (1) The Kunlun team has begun a turbofan version shortly after Kunlun II was successfully tested in 2002.

People forget that China had created more than a few turbofans including the WS-5 which was created from WP6 turbojet that powered A5 and the high bypass WS-8 which was supposed to power the Y-10 airliner (and possibly the proposed Y-9 medium lift transport.) There were also the turbofan engine paired with the J-9 project.

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(1) http://www.idds.org/acr2003/707e4CAR02.html
“4 November
AT THE ZHUHAI AIR SHOW CHINA INTRODUCED A NEW TURBOJET ENGINE, THE KUNLUN II, TO POWER THE F-7 AND F-8 FIGHTER AIRCRAFT. The engine develops a thrust in excess of 53.98 kN, 76.53 kN with the afterburner. According to a spokesman for China Aviation Corp I’s Shenyang Engine Institute, which developed the Kunlun series, it is “the first [Chinese developed jet] aero engine which has finished the whole process of design, pre-production, test, and “test-flight.”

The RD-93 is 49.4kN dry and 81.4kN afterburner.

The Russians did, long before it actually happened. The Communistic system has the major flaw of not being able to work when it is not applied in the entire world. If it is countered by any great power, it will fail, since it doesn’t allow to export or import too many things, this free flow of goods is necessary for one’s economy.

Perhaps but ANY nation today, whether capitalistic or not, that attempts to match the US one for one in an arms race would bankrupt itself.

China might have a growing economy, but that’s because it just was so low.

The point was not whether China’s economy is growing but its current consumption. China’s current comsumption is huge. Much greater than the USSR but it still does not have the same equivalent numbers of weapons as the old USSR. So it is not engaged in an arms races. If it were you’d see far more ships, planes and tanks.

You want to know why they consume more refrigirators and Televisions? Well how many people live in America? Now, how many live in China???? It’s quite logical if you ask me.

How many people live in India and how many live in America? India buys nowhere near as many refrigerators and televisions as the US. The old USSR which had the same population size as the US consumed much, much, much less than the US.

All third world countries, even those with large populations, buy less refrigerators and other appliances than the US or even small western states. Third world nations simply buy less, no matter how many people live in them. China is the one exception of a third world country that buys more than western states.

But the question isn’t really about the number of refrigerators or televisions but about a nation that could buy many times more of these items than the USSR and yet doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of weapons as the USSR.

China simply isn’t engaging in an arms race in the level that its total economic strength would allow it too. It doesn’t because it is a lost cause to challenge the US in procuring weapons.

And of course by mass producing you can lower the prices. But don’t be mistaken, if the West would say NO to your goods, it’s done with China, stagnation and fall. Of course the West won’t do that, it has made its mistakes a long time ago and can’t reverse it anymore.

And of course on military level you have to be strong too. Jonesy and me might not have been able to make our point clear about the 10 UK SSNs, but I’m sure 40+ US SSNs can block every port in China.

Another reason why you won’t want to engage in an arms race with the West. So why would you want to engage in an arms race with the US and the West if they take a large chunk of your exports?

BTW, China actually runs a deficit with the world but a surplus with the US and the West so it is not really like Japan and Taiwan that depends on an overall surplus to survive. China’s internal market is what allows so many televisions and refrigerators to be bought.

If the US decides to block every port in China, there is nothing China can do anyways so why bother trying to match the US submarine for submarine. You are proving exactly my point.

The bottom line is this: China is not engaged in an arms race in spite of its total economic and industrial capabilities (evidenced most strikingly by its consumption of steel) because it’s pointless – and economically suicidal – to match the US one for one in arms.

There can be no doubt China will become a huge naval power.
This has been going on since the early nineties when the chinese began copying Russian aircraft carriers and other vessels.

I suspect with their new economic might, there will be interesting developments in years to come, perhaps even a new arms race? 😮

Actually, there is no proof China has copied Russian carriers or carriers of any sort. In fact, China is the first to design something entirely new: the Commercial Carrier Theme Park 🙂

As far as economic might leading to an arms race, China’s is already many times bigger than the Soviet economy at its height. Yet, there are no tens of thousands of Chinese nukes or tens of thousands of tanks like the old Soviet Union.

What China has instead of a massive air force like the old VVS is a massive airliner fleet of Boeings and Airbuses that dwarfs Aeroflot many times over.

One of the greatest relevation today is that China actually consumes much more steel than the US, over 40% more.

Now why is that important?

Well, during the 150 odd years since the Industrial Revolution, the top iron/steel consumer had ALWAYS been the British Empire or the United States. Steel had always been the main indicator of industrial might. Never had a third world nation been on top. And not just on top but leading by such a wide margin.

In fact, China consumes more refrigerators, televisions and many other home goods than the US. The Soviet Union, of course, never can close to producing and consuming home products in the same manner. Russians used to wait in lines for a bar of soap

So you see, the industrial might is already there and has been for some time. If there were supposed to be an arm race, it would had happened already.

But the last thing the Chinese want to do is to challenge the US in an arms race like the USSR. China’s challenge to the US is in the consumer markets not in the military.

Remember that the capitalistic Chinese of today grew up allied to and admiring the free-market America of the 1970s and 1980s under business-friendly Republicans Nixon, Reagan and Bush Senior.

They know exactly how the US bankrupted the USSR with an epic arm race.

The Russians never had a chance of winning such an arm race. Neither would the Chinese.

But the difference is that the Chinese know the story’s ending and the Russians didn’t.