The J-10 fighter may open up new sales channels

The J-10 fighter may open up new sales channels

The cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia has deepened comprehensively, and the relationship between the two countries has reached a new level. The agreement reached by the two parties this time includes 34 economic and trade cooperation items with a total amount of approximately 200 billion yuan. The areas covered include communication projects such as 5G6G, energy projects such as oil and electricity, tertiary industries such as tourism, and a large number of infrastructure projects.

Saudi Arabia has always hoped to get rid of or reduce the national economy's heavy dependence on the oil industry and move towards diversification. Saudi Arabia's choice of China as a partner will undoubtedly bring Saudi Arabia one step closer to this dream.

The 200 billion large order between China and Saudi Arabia appears to be extremely dazzling in the current global economic downturn. This may play a demonstration role in international trade and attract various countries to increase economic cooperation with China. . Of course, this is something for later. The most worthy of celebration right now is of course the comprehensive upgrade of bilateral relations between China and Saudi Arabia.

For a long time in the past, Saudi Arabia has been the most important ally of the United States in the Middle East. However, due to the hegemonic policy pursued by the United States for a long time, it has also ruthlessly taken advantage of its allies. This approach, coupled with Saudi Arabia's inherent need for independence, has caused cracks in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia to some extent. Under such conditions, Saudi Arabia has to re-evaluate its "ally" relationship with the United States. The change in Saudi Arabia's relationship with the United States may also be the first shot to overthrow the United States' oil hegemony.

Unfortunately, China and Saudi Arabia did not sign an arms purchase order this time. However, now that China and Saudi Arabia have been upgraded to comprehensive strategic partners, defense cooperation between the two sides will naturally not be absent in the future. As a result, the possibility of China exporting advanced fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia will also be greatly increased.

In order to weaken the US military influence on Saudi Arabia, it has been revealed that Saudi Arabia plans to purchase 100-200 "Rafale" fighter jets from France to reduce the country's air force's dependence on US-made F-15 and other fighters. However, It may be difficult to actually implement this order.

For a long time, with Israel in the west gearing up and Iran in the east, and surrounded by powerful enemies, Saudi Arabia has attached great importance to national defense construction, especially the air force, which has outstanding performance in modern warfare. It has always been an important factor in Saudi Arabia’s military development. The focus has been on purchasing a large number of advanced fighter aircraft from European and American countries many times in the past.

Public information shows that the Saudi Air Force currently has 227 F-15 series fighters, 66 Tornado fighters, and 72 Typhoon fighters, all of which are the main models of Western countries. The overall strength is indeed very strong. The only shortcoming is that it cannot effectively deal with the Israeli F-35 fighter jets. Now, Saudi Arabia is trying to purchase "Rafale" fighter jets in large quantities, which is clearly to marginalize the relatively old F-15 fighter jets.

It is understood that in order to ensure the security of Israel as much as possible, the United States has weakened the weapons exported to Middle Eastern countries to a certain extent. The same is true for the F-15s equipped in large quantities by Saudi Arabia. Some sources even say that as soon as Saudi F-15 fighter jets are dispatched, Israel will be able to obtain all real-time information about the fighter jets through U.S. channels. Even when Saudi Arabia issues missile launch instructions to its fighter jets, it requires confirmation by U.S. military personnel before the instruction can be issued. Being able to reach Saudi pilots seems to be an exaggeration, but the United States has indeed adopted many technical restrictions on the export of weapons to the Middle East.

The news that Russia will sell Su-35 fighter jets to Iran seems to be a conclusion. Saudi Arabia also urgently needs more advanced fighters than the F-15 to deal with the fourth-generation fighter jets that Iran may equip. This is also What prompted Saudi Arabia to purchase Rafale fighter jets.

It needs to be admitted that the "Rafale" fighter is a very excellent fighter, but its "all-rounder" feature does not seem to be able to take up space when dealing with air superiority fighters such as the Su-35 or F-16. Big advantage.

The most important thing is that if France can reach an arms purchase order with Saudi Arabia, it will inevitably affect the interests of the US military-industrial complex. Whether the deal can be realized ultimately depends on the face of the United States. Under such circumstances, cooperation with China may be Saudi Arabia’s best choice.

In fact, there is a precedent for China-Saudi Arabia military cooperation. In 1987 of the last century, Saudi Arabia asked China to purchase Dongfeng-3 medium-range ballistic missiles because its purchase intention was rejected by the United States. After negotiation, China finally sold 35 Dongfeng-3 medium-range ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia at a price of US$100 million each, solving in one fell swoop the problem of Saudi Arabia being intimidated by neighboring countries for decades. The transaction price was US$3.5 billion. It also exceeded China's annual foreign exchange reserves at that time. This transaction created a win-win situation for both parties.

Since then, Saudi Arabia has successively purchased military drones and self-propelled artillery from my country. Generally speaking, Saudi Arabia has a relatively high degree of recognition of Chinese-made weapons.

As the leader among the fourth-generation aircraft, the J-10 has also been favored by Saudi Arabia. In 2018, there was news that Saudi Arabia was negotiating to purchase J-10 fighters, but in the end it chose the "Typhoon" fighter . Now, with the blessing of the "comprehensive strategic partnership", exporting J-10 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia will no longer be an empty talk.

In terms of performance, with the support of active phased array radar, advanced data bus, and turbofan-10C, the J-10C has become one of the fourth-and-a-half-generation fighter jets in terms of maneuverability and situational awareness. 15 air-to-air missiles further strengthen the beyond-visual-range air combat capabilities.

In addition, according to the successful case of China's export of J-10CE to Pakistan, the unit price of the export-oriented J-10CE is approximately US$60 million, which is definitely the most cost-effective among all four-generation semi-aircraft.

From the perspective of Saudi Arabia’s economic strength, the cost of purchasing J-10 fighters is not a problem for Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the fourth-generation semi-fighters, my country's latest J-35 stealth fighter is also an important direction for the next step of cooperation. Whether it is Saudi Arabia's military needs or Saudi Arabia's economic strength, there is no problem in purchasing this cutting-edge model, not to mention that the relationship between the two countries is now further advanced. To sum it up, Saudi Arabia can not only have the J-10C fighter jet that can compete with the Su-35, but also have a stealth model that can compete with the US-made F-35 fighter jet. It is difficult not to tempt the Saudi "rich". In general, the promotion of China-Saudi Arabia to a comprehensive strategic partnership is a good start, and anything is possible in the future.