Whoops!

Denis Manturov, the head of Minpromtorg, finally explained to TASS those "issues" with CR-929 and they expose, quite well, reasons why I am always stand-offish whenever I speak about joint projects with China. This "insight" explains it very well. 

— Возвращаясь к теме международного сотрудничества, что сейчас происходит с совместным проектом России и Китая по созданию дальнемагистрального широкофюзеляжного авиалайнера CR929?

— Думаю, мы в первом квартале следующего года проведем очередные переговоры, выйдем на понятные перспективы и сроки. Но у наших китайских коллег на сегодняшний день в этом проекте присутствуют заявки на участие от различных производителей компонентов третьих стран. Мы же такой формат для себя не рассматриваем, с учетом сегодняшней ситуации и всех рисков, которые очень хорошо понимаем. Поэтому, чтобы с ними не столкнуться, возможно, примем для себя решение из партнера в рамках этого проекта перейти в статус поставщика агрегатов, компонентов.

Translation: - Returning to the topic of international cooperation, what is happening with the joint project of Russia and China to create a long-haul wide-body airliner CR929? 

 - I think we will hold regular negotiations in the first quarter of next year, and reach clear prospects and deadlines. But our Chinese colleagues today have applications for participation in this project from various manufacturers of components from third countries. We do not consider such a format for ourselves, given the current situation and all the risks that we understand very well. Therefore, in order not to encounter them, we may make a decision for ourselves from a partner within the framework of this project to move into the status of a supplier of aggregates and components.

In other words, geopolitical aims, and whenever speaking about aerospace we need to keep in mind that it is an industry of global importance, of Russia and China diverge here, and diverge seriously. Russia is pursuing, quite successfully, an autarkic model in strategic industries, China does not and the trend in Chinese commercial aerospace is very clear. I already presented here the composition of Chinese C-919 and wrote about it recently. Remember? 

I cannot emphasize enough when speaking about aerospace that China, for all her great economic achievements, is STILL not in the premier league of the aerospace and, as an example, nuclear submarines, among few other sectors. China builds her commercial aerospace with the sight on the West's markets, thinking, very wrongly, that practically all-Western aircraft produced in China, such as C-919, or even joint CR-929 containing a truck-load of Western-made systems, will somehow grant China the entrance to Western market or the markets elsewhere. In this case China sets herself for failure, because commercial aerospace market doesn't work like this. 

Manturov is correct, that if China decides to go this way, Russia must simply withdraw as a partner from this project and contract herself as a supplier. It will release Russia's resources for development of her domestic wide-body aircraft which, most likely, will be redesigned and re-motorized to two PD-35s iteration of an excellent IL-96. Never again will Russia depend on the combined West for anything, especially in such critical industrial field as commercial aerospace. In combat aviation Russia remains one of the two leaders in the world, and, as today's events showed, Russia increases production of SU-57s and today a new batch has been delivered to Russian Air Force (in Russian). 

As Lavrov stated today--the US informed Russia through diplomatic channels that they do not want to fight Russia directly. Sure, who would, but the US thinks it can exhaust Russia. Naive and uneducated people they are in D.C. Not very bright, because they didn't study real economy and war. Same goes for Brussels. But I repeat myself.