Pat,
I think it is very important to keep in mind HOW China's Military-Industrial Complex works.
There's a lot of prototype kit produced each year by China's MIC; like the ST2:
Quote:
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China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) has expanded its armoured vehicle portfolio with the development of the ST2 tracked 105 mm Tank Destroying Vehicle (TDV), which is understood to have been developed specifically for the export market rather than the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
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The PLA(N) recently retired their last gun armed Tank Destroyer, the PTZ-89 on 3 November 2015 from 39th Army Group in favor of more ATGMs; so chances of the ST2 being acquired by the PLA(N) are microscopic.
What does happen is that because labor costs in China are extremely low, it doesn't cost that much to design and build a few prototypes; and sometimes they score on the export market; thanks to China not being so picky what the purchaser is doing -- for example what human rights violations?
Also, the PLA(N) may use export markets to "piggyback" R&DT&E development through an export customer; so what may appear to be a 'dead end' can actually turn out to be productive; like the Pakistani Memorandum on Joint Development for tank development which produced the Type 85-II/Type-90-II/Al Khalid/MBT-2000/VT-1 family of vehicles.
Even though the Chinese version of that family: ZTZ-90 (Type 90) lost out to the ZTZ-96 (Type 96) family for the next generation of PLA tank acquistion, it still got sold decently overseas as MBT-2000/Al Khalid/VT-1.
Known Current Chinese Export Tanks under the current designation system (god, they keep changing their designations every few years) are:
Type 90-II/MBT-2000/Al Khalid --- EXPORT VERSION ----> VT-1
ZTZ-96G ---- EXPORT VERSION ---> VT-2
Type 59 (ZTZ-59) --- Modernized with new turret, 125mm gun, and similar add on armor that modern Chinese tanks have ---> VT-3
ZTZ-99G ---- EXPORT VERSION ---> VT-4
VT-5: Brand new light tank of completely new design. May be NORINCO attempting to recoup costs on a private (or public/private) venture to produce a Type 62 (ZTZ-62) replacement for the PLA(N).