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After Pakistan’s Success, Two More Countries Want China’s J-10CE Quwa Premium
Bangladesh and Indonesia have both officially committed to procuring the Chengdu J-10, a single-engine medium-weight multirole fighter offered by Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).
Indonesia’s defence minister, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, and finance minister, Yudhi Sadewa, have both been quoted speaking on a deal in the works, with the latter saying that the budget request for the purchase is awaiting approval.
Jane’s reports that Indonesia is planning to procure second-hand J-10B airframes from People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) stocks, while AP News reported that Defence Minister Sjamsoeddin suggested that the J-10CE is being procured.
Likewise, interim Bangladesh government official Asif Mahmud Sajeeb Bhuiyan stated on X that a government-to-government (G2G) deal is underway to buy new “multirole combat and attack aircraft.”
Though the specific type was not disclosed, a number of sources indicate that it is the J-10CE (though Western options were considered), with local media reporting that a USD $2.2 billion deal for 20 aircraft is underway.
Attributed to the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) apparent success in using the platform (which shot down several Indian fighter aircraft), the AVIC J-10CE is seeing a surge in market interest.
The potential sales to Bangladesh and Indonesia could be the watershed moment Beijing’s been waiting for to capture a share of the global defence aviation market and, potentially, set the stage for its export growth.
AVIC J-10CE: China’s Original Fighter Success Story
The J-10CE is the latest and current variant of the Chengdu J-10, a single-engine, medium-weight multirole fighter platform indigenously designed, developed, and fully manufactured by China.
It is a success on several fronts:
First, it represents the first modern Chinese original fighter platform, using indigenous inputs like turbofan engine, radar, avionics, electronic warfare (EW) and electronic countermeasures (ECM), and munitions.
Second, it entered widespread use with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), becoming one of its mainstay fighters and driving economies-of-scale to control upfront costs.
Third, the latest iteration – J-10C – leverages a high-powered active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar with modern EW/ECM and a digital helmet-mounted display/sight (HMD/S) system for cueing air-to-air missiles (AAM).
In effect, the J-10CE offers a contemporary package comparable – at least in the type of technologies on offer – to modern Western fighters. In some respects, China’s offerings exceed some Western solutions in terms of features, e.g., the PL-15E incorporated an AESA-based seeker, a generational leap compared to the mechanically-steered seekers used in designs like the MBDA Meteor.
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