05.07.08
China Copies Obsolete Russian Fighter
An interesting article by the Indian Defense Research Wing (click here if you are surfing from China) comments on the threat that China may or may not be posing to the Russian aircraft industry by a copied Sukhoi-27, now manufactured in China.
The article goes on to describe the history of China’s military aircraft industry and how it lags behind the west by some 15 years.
Chinese leaders eventually resolved to rectify the situation by purchasing up-to-date aircraft production technologies. In 1988, China bought production forms and records for Israel’s Lavi multi-role fighter. Sixteen years later, in 2004, China mastered production of the Chengdu J-10 - an essentially Israeli warplane featuring Russian avionics.
As reported last November, J-10 Fighters, based on the Lavi, were sold by China to Iran.
The sale of the J-10 to Iran would constitute a betrayal of Israel’s extensive aid to China’s military modernization efforts during the 1980s and 1990s. Originally encouraged by the Carter Administration in the late 1970s, in the effort to encourage China’s strategic tilt toward the West and against the Soviet Union, Israel sold China a wide range of army, electronic, naval and aerospace technology.
… when the U.S. and Europe placed arms embargoes on China, Israel refused to follow suit. Many Israeli officials supported continued military technical sales to China not just to make profits necessary to fund future military products, but also because they felt that such sales would persuade China not to sell advanced weapons to Israel’s enemies.
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