Rafale Counter? Pakistan Gets 6 New-Generation Chinese Fighter Jets

Karachi: Pakistan has imported six fourth-generation fighter jets from China. It’s a move seen as China’s helping hand to its ally to counter India’s recently-acquired Rafale warplanes from France.

Prime Minister Imran Khan and the three service chiefs attended the event where the six J-10CE fighter jets were inducted into Pakistan air force on Friday.

J-10CE is an all-weather, single-engine, single-seat, multirole, fourth-plus generation fighter jet equipped with latest Chinese missiles, which include the ‘most powerful short-range combat missile, the PL-10, and China’s most powerful beyond-visual-range-missile, the PL-15,’ according to China’s state media.

“With the delivery of the J-10CEs, China and Pakistan opened a new chapter in aviation defence cooperation, and it will significantly contribute to the further deepening of the China-Pakistan All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership,” Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) said in a statement, Global Times reported.

Between 2016 and 2020, 38% of China’s total arms exports were to Pakistan, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“The J-10CE is not only more powerful than the lightweight JF-17 because of its bigger size, it is also more powerful than Pakistan’s old US-made F-16 fighter… It can rival Rafale fighter jet that was recently inducted into Indian air force,” Shi Hong, executive chief editor of Chinese magazine Shipborne Weapons, said.