China, Taiwan beefing up missile systems

China and Taiwan are both primed to invest heavily in air and missile defense systems in the coming years.

On the one hand, there have been more and more signs that China will become the first foreign customer of Russia’s most advanced anti-missile system, the S-400. China’s People’s Liberation Army already operates the Russian-made S-300 anti-missile system, and Beijing and Moscow have reportedly been negotiating over the S-400 since 2010. These talks have reportedly been slowed by a number of issues, including Russia’s concern that China would reverse-engineer the advanced anti-air and anti-missile system.