China has gained an advantage in the market for armed drone sales to the Middle East as more stringent export restrictions have held back US sales, a Pentagon intelligence report revealed this week.
The Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s in-house analysis unit, said that China’s total arms sales around the world totaled $20 billion between 2012 and 2016, as Beijing seeks to build bridges with countries in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region in its quest for new markets and natural resources.