Did China Get Germany’s Boxer Armored Vehicle from Ukraine? |
China has become a high-tech superpower rivaling even the United States in key technological domains. Yet, the basis of China’s rise was very much built upon cloning technologies and capabilities of America and Europe. Even today, despite the surge in domestic innovation and production, sometimes China just likes to carbon copy technologies and platforms from the West.
This appears to be precisely what Beijing has done recently with Germany’s Boxer multirole armored vehicle. The Chinese have built an armored personnel carrier (APC) that looks just like the German Boxer—replete with a V-hull design, modular structure, and an armored driver’s cabin. This has been confirmed based upon images of the vehicle being test driven in China’s Baotou Industrial Zone.
It has been speculated that this German knockoff, after it is successfully tested, will be used as an export model for China’s growing (and increasingly competitive) arms export industry. Defence-Blog, an industry publication,