Badrish Shukla

How dominant is China in the global arms trade? Decades of economic growth coupled with its ongoing military modernization have enabled China to emerge as a major player in the global arms trade. For years, Beijing imported several times more conventional weapons than it sold overseas, but for most of the last decade, China has been a net arms exporter. Between 2008 and 2018, China exported some $15.7 billion worth of conventional weapons across the globe, making it the 5 th  largest arms supplier in the world – behind the United States, Russia, Germany, and France. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China’s conventional arms sales surged from $645 million in 2008 to $1.04 billion in 2018. 1  Over this period, the lion’s share of these exports – around 75 percent – went to Asia. An additional 20 percent flowed into Africa. Although China has established itself as an arms export leader, the overall value of its trade still pales in comparison to t