It is well known that in the 4th Middle East War, broken out in the fall of 1973 and lasted only 17 days of fighting, both the Arab states and Israel lost half of major weapons such as tanks and aircrafts they kept in an armament race based on imported arms. It was surely a hot war of attrition between regional military powers equipped with imported arms. Both the U. S. and the Soviet Union, also at that time, were apparently in favor of maintaining the status quo in that region, and thus tried (1) to preserve the military balance in peace time, (2) to keep the development of war under their control after it broke out, (3) to seek a settlemet under an international arrangement forged primarily by the U. S. and Soviet Union and, finally, after its settlement, (4) to export weapons to maintain a subsequent military balance in the affected region. It seemed that there was no change in both superpower's attitudes compared with those in the case of the 3rd Middle East War. At this time, however, there was essentially a new qualitative change which should not be overlooked in the light of the traditional framework of the arms trade. It was caused from the emergence of the oil strategy, resulting in the flow of a great deal of the “Oil Dollars” into the Middle East.
Although the main aim of this paper is to consider recent trends of the arms trade with the Third World, this paper (1) refers, as the preliminaly work, to the development of the international transfer of arms with special attention to the change “from the military aid to the arms trade, ” (2) reviews recent trends of the arms trade, and (3) in conclusion, analyzes the new phase of the arms trade with the Third World, the change from the seller's market to the buyer's market.

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In many developing countries, the arms industry is the most advanced sector of all industries, and that has raised the technical level and productivity of civil industries. For those reasons, many countries in the Third World have developed arms industries. Now, India, Korea and Sountheast Asian countries are expanding their arms industries.
Recently, China has emerged as a major arms exporter to the Third World. In the time of Mao Zedong, China exported small weapons to socialist countries and revolutionary forces by its “friendly price.” But after Deng Xiaoping's reforms, national interest took precedence over ideology, and china began to export large and expensive weapons. For example, China exported tactical ballistic missiles to Syria and Pakistan, and China exported nuclear reactors to Algeria. In 1985, China exported fifty medium-range ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia for two billion dollars. Saudi Arabia is an anti-communist and fundamental Islamic country.
In 1980's, the objective of arms export was to earn foreignn currency for the “Four Modernizations” Programme. China also sold weapons to both Iran and Iraq. At that time they fought a long war of attrition.
Chinese weapons are competitive in the world arms market. They are basically copies of Soviet weapons of 1950's and 60's. China insists that Chinese weapons are cheap, tough and easy to handle. But complicated weapons, such as tanks and fighters, are said to have many defects. Nevertheless, for developing countries, cheap Chinese weapons are very attractive.
Chinese weapons cannot fight against the high-tech weapons of the advanced countries. But Chinese weapons can fight well against the old weapons of the developing countries. Above all, developing countries can import Chinese weapons in a short period of time. In many advanced countries, arms exports are strictly controlled by the government. Technical procedure of arms exporting has to take lengthy steps, and sometimes it takes a few years. But in China, there is no congress or mass media which can check the Communist Party. For those countries, that may cause political or economic frictions with the advanced countries, China is a convenient country, or the only choice to deal with. Chinese low price weapons, which are easy to import, lower the threshold of war.
China influences the devloping countries not by economic aid but by arms export. Looking back over the Cold War era, one of the most powerful resources of the superpowers was their superior military capability which enabled them to control the world arms market. China's national strategy is to be the hegemon in East Asia and to have influence over the world. China's active arms export strengthens the Chinese influence upon the Third World, and advances its national strategy.

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