Since its beginning, the PRC’s ballistic missile and space program has received considerable foreign expertise and technology. This support has helped the PRC become a major ballistic missile and space power. The PRC has received considerable assistance from Russia (and previously from the Soviet Union) and the United States, as well as from other nations such as France and Germany.

From 1956 to 1960, the Soviet Union was the major supplier of ballistic missile technology and knowledge to the PRC. The Sino-Soviet split in 1960 ended this cooperation. Today, however, Russia is a major supplier of space launch technology to the PRC. This assistance could be expanded to help the PRC in its efforts to develop road-mobile ICBMs, which would provide the PLA with more confidence in the survivability of its retaliatory nuclear force.

Technology and knowledge acquired from the United States has also assisted the PRC’s missile and space programs, although this assistance was never officially sanctioned. Qian Xuesen was a Chinese citizen who was trained in the United States and who worked on classified programs including the Titan ICBM program. After being accused of spying for the PRC in the 1950s, Qian was permitted to return to the PRC, where he became the “father” of the PRC’s ballistic missile and space programs. The illegal acquisition of U.S. technology for the PLA’s ballistic missiles and space programs has continued aggressively during the past two decades, up to the present day.

The PRC has stolen design information on the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear weapons, elements of which could be emulated by the PRC in its next generation ICBMs.

The PRC has stolen U.S. missile guidance technology that has direct applicability to the PLA’s ballistic missiles.

Assistance from U.S. companies has improved the reliability of the PRC’s military and civilian rockets, and the transfer of some of these improvements to its ballistic missiles is possible.

Western nations, including the United States, Germany, and France, have provided significant support to the PRC’s satellite programs. German companies provide the communications package for the PRC’s DFH-3 communications satellites. U.S.-manufactured radiation-hardened chips are also used on the PRC’s meteorological satellites, used for both military and civilian purposes, to increase the on-orbit life of the satellites.

The PRC is a major ballistic missile proliferator. While the PRC agreed in 1991 to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime, the PRC transferred complete ballistic missile systems to Pakistan in 1992, and has provided other nations with ballistic missiles production-related technologies. The PRC has not agreed to the MTCR’s revised limits on transfers of ballistic missile components.

The PRC has transferred ballistic missile technology to Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and other countries. .