On June 2023, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) unveiled a model of a new large aircraft at the Paris Air Show. Unlike previous times, this time the model number was no longer CR929, but changed to C929, which marked that Russia had withdrawn from the joint research and development plan and no longer participated in China's large aircraft project.

Two years after Russia's withdrawal, China's large aircraft project is gradually entering the fast lane, but Russia is paying a price for canceling the cooperation.

On August 10th, Swiss aviation intelligence institution ch-aviation released statistical data externally, stating that Russia had originally planned to deliver 15 self-developed commercial large aircraft in 2024, but after one and a half years, only 1 had been delivered. The original plan to produce 171 aircraft was forced down to 21.

Regarding this, Russian aviation industry personnel accepted an interview with Deutsche Welle, stating that the main reason for the poor performance of Russia's large aircraft project was the sanctions caused by the Ukraine-Russia war after the cancellation of the joint research and development, leading to the break of the Russian industrial chain funding, lack of aviation parts, production facilities and enough industrial workers.

Throughout history, as the largest country in the world, Russia has relied heavily on the aviation transportation industry to meet its long-distance logistics and travel needs. It currently has a fleet of over 700 civil aviation aircraft, mainly European Airbus and American Boeing planes.

However, since the outbreak of the Ukraine issue in 2014, Russia has gradually been sanctioned, leading to obstacles in importing Western aircraft parts, so it began to consider cooperating with China to develop a large aircraft to avoid risks.

Nevertheless, although Russia planned to cooperate with China to develop a large aircraft, it was merely superficially united, and the main purpose was to use Chinese funds to reshape its own aviation industry.

Previously, personnel who participated in the preliminary negotiations of the China-Russia large aircraft project stated in an interview with Observers News in 2023 that during the negotiation period, when the Russian side talked about technical issues, they showed no interest, but when talking about money, they became very energetic, which showed that the Russian side's joint research and development of the large aircraft had a purpose.

Moreover, with the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the escalation of Western sanctions against Russia further hindered investment cooperation between China and Russia, making it more difficult for Russia to obtain Chinese funds, thus failing to achieve its goals, which prompted Russia to ultimately choose to withdraw from the C929 joint research and development plan.

In fact, although Russia chose to withdraw, it may not be a bad thing for us, because it further encourages our country to strengthen independent R&D, and get rid of the concerns about Russian involvement in Western sanctions, allowing us to better participate in international cooperation, facilitating exports and approvals abroad.

Currently, C929 has submitted for airworthiness certification, signed the first user framework agreement, and was officially launched in February 2025, and is expected to be designed and produced at a faster pace, becoming China's first long-range wide-body passenger aircraft.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7536423352840241710/

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