China and Indonesia have started talks on the ambitious local production
of C-705 anti-ship missiles as part of Indonesia's efforts to achieve
independence in weapons production.
The defence cooperation reflects
strengthening ties between both countries amid heightening tension in the South
China Sea involving China and a number of Indonesia's Asean neighbours.
Defence Ministry chief spokesman
Brig. Gen. Hartind Asrin said that the initial talks were conducted during the
first China-Indonesia defence industry cooperation meeting held in Jakarta just
recently.
The ministry's defence potential
director general Pos M. Hutabarat hosted the Chinese delegation which was led
by Liu Yunfeng, a deputy director general at the Chinese State Administration
for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence.
"The meeting discussed
various efforts to improve cooperation between the defence industries of both
countries," Asrin said yesterday. "We've already prepared an area for
the [missile] production site that faces the open sea for trials."
Asrin said the C-705 had a range
of 120 kilometres.
He said that the Indonesian Navy
had successfully test-fired the C-705 missiles in the Sunda Strait.
"China has also offered to
donate weapons systems that Indonesia might need," he added.
A source said that Indonesia was
expected to reply to Phase 1 of the missile proposal at the end of August and
Phase 2 one month later. A contract is expected to be signed in 2013.
Phase 1 is on semi-knocked down
production while Phase 2 is on completely-knocked down production.
A proposal for a Phase 3 on
research and development is already on the table although the focus is
currently on the first two phases.
Aside from the missile
production, a number of Indonesian Army Special Force Command (Kopassus)
members recently conducted the second "Sharp Knife" joint exercise
with Chinese Special Forces operatives earlier this month in Jinan, Shandong,
China.
China has also offered to train
10 pilots from the Indonesian Air Force to train using a Sukhoi simulator in
China.
Commenting on the defence
cooperation, defence expert Andi Widjajanto said the industrial cooperation was
solely to gain access to more advanced technology.
"However, it will take a
long time for us to be independent in the defence industry, perhaps after 2024.
This is the reason Indonesia builds partnerships with many countries that
possess modern military technologies," he said. "This is also why we
require partner countries to transfer their technologies to us in any agreement
we sign with them."
Widjajanto added that there were
two goals in terms of the partnership: to access advanced rocket technology,
and to collaborate in upholding maritime security, which began when President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed an agreement in March during a state visit to
Beijing.
"I don't believe it has
anything to do with conflicts in the South China Sea," he stressed.
Meanwhile, chairman of the House
of Representatives' Commission I on defence issues, Mahfudz Shiddiq, said such
global partnerships in the defence industry were designed to develop
Indonesia's own industry.
"We have allocated 150
trillion rupiah [US$15.8 billion] to modernise our weapons-defence system from
2010 to 2014. It would be wasteful paying such a huge amount to foreign defence
industries without any attempt to improve our own," he said.
"Therefore, we require
partner countries to transfer their military technologies in the hope that they
will gradually improve our own technologies."
He added that the partnership
with China was due to its advanced military technologies in fields such as
rocketry. "This is not political, even though others might link the
partnership to political issues, for example the South China Sea
disputes," Shiddiq said.
Indonesia already cooperates on
weapons production with several other countries including South Korea to build
jet fighters and submarines, the Netherlands to build frigates and Spain to
build medium transport aircraft.
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