Modern Warfare: Can Military Components Become China’s Greatest Strategic Weapon?

On July 15, 2026, reports revealed that the EU has authorised Ukraine to purchase Chinese drone components using EU defence funds. This decision is striking, as although Europe accuses China of supporting Russia's military-industrial development and seeks to contain China’s military capabilities, the new shift suggests that it may represent a new geopolitical reality rather than a temporary wartime exception.

This decision represents a new direction where Europe has been obligated to finance Chinese defence-related industries because no viable alternative exists. This points to a broader strategic aspiration where China tries to position itself to become an indispensable supplier of military components. It means supplying the core parts and technologies upon which global weapons production increasingly depends. This raises a crucial question: can China leverage its dominance in military components to become the indispensable infrastructure of global defence production?

For years, military competition centred on conventional finished weapons systems, such as tanks, drones, and missiles. However, Ukraine’s latest action demonstrates that modern warfare is evolving, and thus new needs emerge, notably the need for inexpensive, durable military components for arms-producing countries. Currently, a drone’s military effectiveness depends on several interconnected components, including flight controllers, motors, batteries, navigation systems, and AI processors.

However, these components do not all carry the same strategic value. Basic components, such as batteries, electric motors, and commercial optical sensors, primarily contribute to industrial dependency due to the scale and cost competitiveness of Chinese production. In contrast, higher-end components, including AI processors, encrypted navigation modules, and advanced logic semiconductors, hold greater strategic importance because they shape the intelligence, autonomy, and operational performance of modern weapons. Accordingly, Beijing is successfully monopolising the infrastructure of mass, low-cost warfare, but the technological ceiling of high-end strategic defence systems remains fiercely contested.

For over two decades, China has been developing its own arms production. It has been focusing on developing dual-use technologies to serve both civilian and military purposes. Between 2021 and 2025, China succeeded in becoming one of the world’s largest conventional arms exporters. It became a pioneering defence producer of reverse engineering and low-cost production.

Recent reports indicate that China is not only exporting ready-made weapons but is expanding its strategic agenda and is beginning to supply core military components for weapons to other countries. Accordingly, China doesn’t seem to be competing for finished weapons hegemony but is taking a new direction and developing its own distinctive hegemony in modern warfare, which is critical military components that weapons can’t function without.

So, the EU decision doesn’t seem to be an isolated procurement one, but rather a result of a broader restructuring of the military-industrial strategy that Beijing has been developing. The growing number of conflicts is forcing countries into a new reality: they must develop the capacity to manufacture their own weapons, particularly ballistic missiles, interceptors, and drones. China believes that geopolitical influence is shifting from exporting the most advanced weapons to controlling the industrial infrastructure that enables other countries to build, sustain, and modernise their own military capabilities.

Hence, the chain of Chinese arms exports has the potential to expand in two ways: exporting ready-made arms and critical components that are vital for countries that engage in weapons production and/or transferring the production process from China to Global South countries, as they are more cost-effective, while retaining control over the components, such as sensors, electronics, and communication modules, within China itself. In doing so, Beijing is creating a form of industrial dependency; in its appearance, decentralised production is encouraged, but in essence all core technologies remain centralised.

China’s strategic advantage lies in building a complete industrial operating system capable of coordinating every stage of military production at the national level. Starting from rare-earth materials that enter the manufacturing of critical military parts. Simultaneously, it employs dual-use technologies through its military-civilian fusion, which means using its civilian innovations, for instance, semiconductors, to develop military production. Towards final assembly of products in factories and exporting the military components as well as the finished weapons in a controlled system to maintain its indispensable position.

Additionally, the components themselves rely on supply chains that China dominates. Beijing controls a significant share of global rare-earth production and roughly 90% of processing capacity, as well as refining stages that transform raw minerals into the final components, such as magnets, sensors, electric motors, and advanced electronics. This advantage is not limited to China’s domestic production but extends to long-term investments, infrastructure projects, and vital mineral partnerships in the Global South, as Beijing leverages this structural economic dynamic to integrate African and Global South resource extraction into its supply chain.

As a result, countries may increasingly assemble military systems domestically, but many of the essential inputs needed to manufacture their components continue to depend on extraction, processing, and refining capabilities controlled by China. For instance, dysprosium, found in China, is a crucial rare-earth element used to create heat-resistant magnets found in many advanced military systems. It is added to neodymium magnets in the F-35, F/A-18, and Eurofighter Typhoon, as well as naval drive motors and electric motors for military vehicles.

So, even if countries succeed in assembling drones or missiles domestically, many of the critical components embedded within those systems continue to derive from Chinese industrial systems.

Beijing is redefining global military power and the traditional dependence on the West. But it is not the only emerging power. Ankara is also a growing military power within NATO, supplying countries with drones and warfare systems. Türkiye and China are pursuing different layers of the same transformation in global defence. Türkiye is emerging as an alternative industrial supplier within NATO, while China is increasingly positioning itself as the backbone of military components upon which those alternative suppliers depend.

However, the strategic independence of these emerging defence producers will ultimately depend on their ability to diversify their primary supply chains for critical components and manufactured materials. If these inputs remain heavily reliant on China, the emergence of alternative arms manufacturers may reduce dependence on traditional suppliers without entirely eliminating reliance on Beijing’s industrial system.

In other words, if Turkey’s advanced military systems still heavily rely on Chinese sub-tier microelectronics and processed rare earths to maintain their competitive, low-cost edge, then NATO’s pursuit of “alternative suppliers” might be inadvertently deepening its indirect reliance on Beijing.

This suggests that competition in modern defence production is increasingly expanding to include, in addition to manufacturers of efficient, low-cost finished weapons, the suppliers who control the critical components integrated into them.

Although Ankara is emerging as a vital supplier in a high-demand market for advanced military systems, Beijing could exert geopolitical influence through its growing role as an indispensable infrastructure supplier in modern warfare.

In modern warfare, military influence may no longer be over who supplies finished weapons but who controls the components and technologies upon which those weapons depend. The EU-Ukrainian case may be the start of a new phase. China is moving from being an exporter of arms to becoming the industrial backbone on which modern weapons increasingly depend.

China may simultaneously export military systems and dual-use components. Military-civil fusion allows China to blur the lines between commercial manufacturing and defence production. Hence, it will likely be able to export batteries, AI, semiconductors, robotics, aerospace, and electronics on both civilian and military bases. This will enable Beijing to dominate dual-use technologies and core components, making sanctions and export controls significantly more difficult to enforce.

Moreover, Beijing is likely to focus on Europe and the Middle East, where expanding defence cooperation can strengthen its geopolitical influence and establish long-term industrial dependencies. Europe has long relied on the United States and Western suppliers for its military components. However, as Washington becomes less willing to contribute to Europe’s security needs and conflicts such as the Russia–Ukraine war, European countries may gradually diversify their defence procurement and increasingly turn to Chinese military components. This shift will not only alter procurement patterns but could also fundamentally reshape the global defence economy and alliance arrangements.

Yet, China’s influence will ultimately depend on the strength, precision, and durability of the components it supplies to other countries. Ongoing conflicts will act as a testing ground for Chinese military components, providing insights on how these technologies and parts perform under real combat conditions. The results will contribute to driving continuous improvements in China’s defence industry, enhancing the competitiveness of its military components, which serve as its greatest strategic weapon for geopolitical influence.

In sum, the EU approach suggests a change in direction for countries that long wanted to control China’s growing influence. Global changes and ongoing conflicts seem to be a driving force behind the shifting positions of Western countries towards China. Needing core parts for their demanding military production could lead to informal dealings and a softer approach in future export control regulations with Beijing.

This creates an environment where countries around the world would be directly dependent on Chinese-controlled infrastructure for their defence capabilities. Beijing would transform this dependency into geopolitical influence. Nevertheless, assuming that Beijing can seamlessly translate this dominance into active geopolitical coercion overlooks the paradox of “interdependence”. If China actively weaponises the export of these critical dual-use components, it risks devastating its reputation as a reliable global supplier, accelerating Western decoupling efforts, and undermining its own commercial tech sector upon which its civil-military fusion relies. Therefore, Beijing’s true strategic weapon is not necessarily the active denial of these components but rather the establishment of deep structural dependency and the latent threat of disruption, ensuring dependent nations are structurally incentivised to avoid direct geopolitical confrontation without Beijing ever needing to fire an economic shot.

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