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Archive for category China

Pakistan’s Hongqi-9 (HQ-9) Anti-Missile System

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The Hongqi-9 (HQ-9) is a long-range, high-altitude, surface-to-air missile system developed and manufactured by China, designed to track and destroy aircraft, cruise missiles, air-to-surface missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles. It incorporates technology from the Russian S-300P (NATO: SA-10 Grumble), the U.S. Patriot missile, and preexisting Chinese systems. (1) At present, China is outfitting its Type 052C destroyers with a naval variant of the HQ-9.(2)

 

 

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The Pakistan-China strategic partnership

 

The Pakistan-China strategic partnership

Courtesy: Dr. Rashid Ahmad Khan, China.org.cn

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The leaderships of Pakistan and China realize the need to provide a solid base to already strong Pakistan-China friendship that goes beyond bilateral trade and economic cooperation and promotes cultural relations and people-to-people contacts. 

 

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The leaderships of Pakistan and China realize the need to provide a solid base to already strong Pakistan-China friendship that goes beyond bilateral trade and economic cooperation and promotes cultural relations and people-to-people contacts. Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani’s recent visit to China and his address at Taihu World Cultural Forum are clear pointers in this direction.

Pakistan-China friendship derives its strength from shared common interests in promoting peace, development and stability in the region and adherence to the principles of sovereign equality, mutual respect, mutual benefit, cooperation and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. Despite having the world’s largest population and its second largest economy, China has never treated Pakistan as its junior partner. During the last two decades, China’s profile as a world power has risen phenomenally. Its relations with the United States, Japan, and European Union, and even with India, have broadened dramatically. But China has never allowed its relations with other countries to affect its friendship with Pakistan.

Pakistan was the first Muslim, and the third non-communist, country to accord diplomatic recognition to China in 1951. Since then, bilateral relations between Pakistan and China have continued to grow, encompassing defence, security, trade, economic cooperation, energy, infrastructure, water management, mining, agriculture, education, transport, communications, science and technology.

China replaced the United States as Pakistan’s principal source for arms and weapons when Washington imposed military sanctions on Pakistan in 1965 and 1990. China has assisted Pakistan in developing its nuclear and conventional defence capabilities which have enhanced Pakistan’s strength in South Asia’s strategic balance. When the United States imposed sanctions against Pakistan in 1990 because of its nuclear weapons development program, China supplied Pakistan with military hardware including 34 short-range ballistic missiles. Recent sales of Chinese conventional weapons to Pakistan include JF-17 aircraft along with production facilities, F-22P frigates with helicopters, K-8 jet trainers, T-85 tanks, F-7 aircraft, small arms and ammunition.

According to latest reports, Pakistan is seeking to buy 36 J-10 aircraft, which would make Pakistan the first recipient of one of the most advanced weapon systems in China’s arsenal. The addition of 36 J-10 aircraft would enable Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to raise two fighter squadrons and further sharpen its combativeness. The sale of the J-10 aircraft signals the depth of Pakistan-China strategic partnership. This partnership reflects close cooperation between the two countries in high-tech production and joint defence projects. The mainstay of China-Pakistan joint defence production is the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra, where servicing, assembly and manufacturing of fighter and trainer aircraft is carried out.

China has also built a turnkey ballistic missile manufacturing facility near Rawalpindi and helped Pakistan develop the 750 km range solid-fueled Shaheen-I ballistic missile. Pakistan and China have also signed an agreement under which China will construct four submarines for Pakistan Navy. A significant aspect of China’s military aid is that it involves the transfer of technology to Pakistan.

With Chinese help, Pakistan has built two nuclear reactors at Chashma, and during President Zardari’s first visit in 2008, China pledged to help Pakistan construct two new nuclear reactors at Chashma. The two nuclear power plants will generate 640 megawatts of power and will help overcome the critical energy crisis in Pakistan. The project is a part of Government of Pakistan’s Vision 2030, which includes plans for generating 8000 megawatts of power from nuclear plants.

 
 

Pakistan and China share a rare unanimity of views on regional and international issues and the two countries enjoy a robust relationship in the defence, political and diplomatic fields. However, the extent of relationship in these areas is not reflected in economic and commercial ties.

Realizing the need to expand trade and economic relations, the two countries have taken initiatives to promote cooperation through investment and joint projects. As a result, economic cooperation between Pakistan and China has shown spectacular progress during the last 10-15 years. Between 2000 and 2010 the volume of bilateral trade grew sevenfold. The two sides plan to increase trade to $10 billion within five years. But that is still far below the potential figure. Currently Chinese companies are working on 250 projects in Pakistan. Some of these are mega projects jointly undertaken by Pakistan and China, including the Thar coal project, the Bhasha Dam, the widening of Karakoram Highway, the Gwader deep sea port and the Saindak gold and copper project.

During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s recent visit to Pakistan, he was accompanied by 260 Chinese business executives. During the visit the two sides concluded deals worth $35 billion. The agreements covered the energy sector, bilateral trade, exploration of natural resources and development of the agriculture, livestock, finance and banking sectors. An important achievement of Premier Wen’s visit was the signing of a MoU between China’s Three Gorges Corporation and Pakistan’s Alternative Energy Development Board for a joint venture on wind power and solar energy projects. The Joint Statement issued at the end of Premier Wen’s visit talked of the determination to “enhance their strategic coordination, advance pragmatic cooperation and work together to meet challenges in pursuit of common development.”

One of the most significant signals of long term strategic partnership is the Gwader deep sea port built with Chinese technical and financial help. Gwader lies at the mouth of the Persian Gulf – the source of 40 percent of the world’s oil. The port will allow China to secure oil and gas supplies from the Persian Gulf and project its power in the Indian Ocean. China has financed 80 percent of the $300 million cost, and is also funding the construction of a rail-road network connecting China with the port through Central Asia and Pakistan, turning Pakistan into an energy and trade corridor for China. The oil and gas supply line through Pakistan is a safer, shorter and cheaper alternative route to the Malacca Straits, which is vulnerable to attacks by pirates and passes through a region dominated by the United States. The importance of Gwader for China can be gauged from the fact that China is the largest consumer of oil after the United States. Its consumption is expected to double by 2025 with 70 percent coming from the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Gwader offers the closest access point to these regions for China. Gwader will provide an overland energy corridor to the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, shortening the journey by 12000 miles. The route will also bring substantial benefits to Pakistan, making it one of the region’s largest energy players. According to one estimate, Pakistan will be earning $60 billion a year in transit fees in 20 years time.

There is vast potential for deepening the Pakistan-China strategic partnership. The current trends in relations show a greater focus on promoting cultural exchanges, people-to-people contacts, and expanding trade and investment ties and economic cooperation. This will, in turn, further strengthen the security and defence links between the two countries, which are a firm guarantee for peace and security in the region.

Dr. Rashid Ahmad Khan is a professor and chairman of the Department of International Relations/Political Science and also dean, Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Law, University of Sargodha-Pakistan.

 

 

 

 

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Tony Cartalucci : Globalists’ Zionist Neocon Pakistan War Plan: Destabilization and invasion long planned

8:30
 But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners.
 

Globalists’ Pakistan War Plan:
 
Destabilization and invasion long planned
 
by Tony Cartalucci
Bangkok, May 11, 2011 
 
In a 2007 article from the London Guardian titled, “Bush handed blueprint to seize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal,” it is stated that fears of destabilization inside Pakistan might prompt the United States to occupy Islamabad and the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, and Baluchistan in an attempt to secure Pakistan’s nuclear warheads. Behind this report is Fredrick Kagan, brother of the equally sloven Robert Kagan of the Foreign Policy Initiative, yet another contrived, corporate fueled warmongering think-tank.

Fredrick Kagan sits within the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which is largely dominated and run by Jews and Zionists with Israel’s rather than American interests at heart. AEI’s board of trustees represents a wide variety of corporate-financier interests including those of the notorious Carlyle Group, State Farm, American Express, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (also of the CFR)War criminal Dick Cheneyalso acts as a trustee. Joining Kagan as members of AEI’s “research staff” are warmongers Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, Richard Perle, John Yoo, and Paul Wolfowitz.

While the sense of self-importance these degenerates shower upon themselves may seem comical, with titles like “senior fellow” and “resident scholar,” the fact that their “policy research” usually becomes corporate subsidized “policy reality” and subsequently the American people’s unending nightmare, is enough reason to keep tabs on them. For instance Fredrick Kagan was supposedly the architect behind the US troop surge in Iraq. And while we may kid ourselves that with Obama taking office the agenda of these supposed Neo-Conservatives is sidelined, Paul Wolfowitz’ plan to overthrow the nations of the Middle East, now being fully executed with US-funded revolutions, probably couldn’t have been done without the veil of “left-cover.”

Kagan’s report regarding Pakistan’s partial occupation and the seizure of its nuclear arsenal is founded on what may first appear to be a reasonable concern; the fear of Pakistan collapsing and its nuclear arsenal falling into the wrong hands. According to Kagan’s narrative, Islamic extremists seizing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal pose as much a threat today as “Soviet tanks” once did.

It’s not terrorists, it’s China

What Kagan leaves out is the very source of this destabilization and America’s overall grand strategy in the region. America’s continued presence in Afghanistan as well as its increasingly aggressive “creep” over the Afghan-Pakistani border has been justified under the ambiguous and omnipresent threat of “terrorism.” In reality, the true goal is to contain the rise of China and other emerging economies using the pretense of “terrorism.” Destabilization via foreign-funded ethnic insurgencies, regime change via foreign-funded sedition, and a regional strategy of tension between power brokers in Beijing, New Delhi, and Islamabad have for years attempted to keep in check not just China and Pakistan’s rise, but India’s as well.

This is not merely speculative conjecture. China itself has recently accused the United States of directly attempting to destabilize their nation as well as using the pretense of “terrorism” as a means to hobble China’s growing influence. In an April 2011 Reuters report, it was stated that “a senior domestic security official, Chen Jiping, warned that “hostile Western forces” — alarmed by the country’s rise — were marshalling human rights issues to attack Party control.” Compounding China’s accusations are open admissions by the US State Department itself declaring that tens of millions will be spent to help activists circumvent China’s security networks in an effort to undermine Beijing. This comes after it has been revealed that the entire Arab Spring” was US-funded.

The issue of Pakistan in regards to China is not merely a figment of a paranoid Beijing’s imagination, it is stated policy circulating throughout America’s corporate-funded think-tanks. Selig Harrison of the Soros funded Center for International Policy has published two pieces specifically calling for carving off of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, not as part of a strategy to win the “War on Terror,” but as a means to thwart growing relations between Islamabad and Beijing.

In Free Baluchistan,” he explicitly calls to “aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression.” He continues by explaining the various merits of such meddling by stating, “Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.”

In a follow up article titled, “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis,” Harrison begins by stating, “China’s expanding reach is a natural and acceptable accompaniment of its growing power—but only up to a point. ” He then repeats his call for meddling in Pakistan by saying, “to counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar.”

Gwadar in the southwest serves as a Chinese port, the starting 
point for a logistical corridor through Pakistan and into Chinese 
territory.
 The plan is to plunge the entire nation into chaos and use
US forces to systematically “help” restore order.
 (click to enlarge)


The very suggestion of fomenting armed violence simply to derail sovereign relations between two foreign nations is scandalous and reveals the absolute depths of depravity from which the global elite operate from. It is quite clear that the “War on Terror” is but a pretense to pursue a policy of regional hegemony with the expressed goal of containing China. This in turn, is part of a greater strategy covered in the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral.” Throughout the report China’s growing influence and various means to co-opt and contain it are discussed. SSI makes special note to mention engaging with all of China’s neighbors in an effort to play them off against Beijing in order to maintain American preeminence throughout Asia.

Destabilizing Pakistan 

In addition to the Gwadar port in Pakistan’s Baluchistan region, China has also built dams, roads, and even nuclear power plants in the country. China has also supplied Pakistan with a tremendous amount of military technology. The only cards America seems to have left in its hand to counter this growing relationship are threats of destabilization, the subsequent stripping of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and Pakistan’s Balkanization into smaller, ineffectual states.

In a 2009 article by Seymour Hersh titled, “Defending the Arsenal,” much attention was given to the immense amount of suspicion and distrust Pakistan views America with. In particular, distrust is garnered over America’s obsession with “defending” Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Under the pretense of “helping” Pakistan if ever it fell into chaos, America has been trying to ascertain the location of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons as well as the trigger assembles kept separate as a security measure.

While America supposedly “fears” destabilization, concurrently, the effects of their war with the Taliban on the Afghan-Pakistan border has overtly stirred up instability inside Pakistan. At one point, Hersh describes Islamabad’s request for predator drones to conduct the attacks themselves, which was denied. They then asked for America to at least pretend to have given the drones to Pakistan and give them Pakistani markings – this was also denied. In fact, it seems almost as if the war against the Taliban, especially the drone campaign, is being used specifically to stir up the Pashtun minority and aim them at Islamabad, just as Harrison had suggested the Baluchistan insurgents be used to carve off Pakistan’s southwest coastal region.

This brings us back to Fredrick Kagan’s “blueprint,” which is summed up in a New York Times piece co-authored with Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon. Their article titled, “Pakistan’s Collapse, Our Problem,” describes the complete collapse of the Pakistani government, overrun by “extremists.” It goes on to describe “Pro-American moderates” within the Pakistani army in need of US forces to help them secure Islamabad and their nuclear arsenal. Several options are given for where the nuclear weapons could be stored safely, all of them involve US oversight. This would give the US an ideal geopolitical scenario that would permanently Balkanize the country along Pashtun, Baluchi, and other ethnic minority lines, and result in a permanent Western presence inside the country.

The article then goes on to say larger military operations to take back Balkanized sections of the country could be undertaken, “If a holding operation in the nation’s center was successful, we would probably then seek to establish order in the parts of Pakistan where extremists operate. Beyond propping up the state, this would benefit American efforts in Afghanistan by depriving terrorists of the sanctuaries they have long enjoyed in Pakistan’s tribal and frontier regions.”

It should be noted that co-author Michael O’Hanlon also contributed to the “Which Path to Persia?” report which described how using foreign-funded armed insurgency, foreign-funded popular revolutions, co-opting members of the military, and covert military operations could be used to topple Iran’s government. In Iran’s case, this plan has already gone operational. In Pakistan’s case it seems all but a foregone conclusion that it is at least being attempted.

If Kagan’s plan were executed after sufficient instability and justification had been created, China’s holdings in Pakistan would be entirely eliminated, with Pakistan itself becoming a permanent extension of the unending US occupation of Afghanistan. This explains China’s initial reaction to the “Bin Laden” hoax. Immediately recognizing the unfolding implications, China rushed to Islamabad’s defense calling for support from the international community for Islamabad. China also criticized America’s intrusion into Pakistan’s sovereign territory.

The US raid incensed the Pakistani people, attempted to drive a wedge between the military and the government, as well as gave rhetorical leverage to the US over Islamabad and the Pakistani military. The suggestion by the US that “Bin Laden” had a support network inside Pakistan’s military appears to be an initial attempt to usher in some form of Kagan’s “nuke-napping” invasion plan. With Beijing openly accusing the US of interfering in its internal affairs and with the “Arab Spring” quickly turning into regional warfare, there is no turning back for the globalists.

The corporate-financier oligarchs and their many helping hands are a degenerate elite who have spent their entire lives sheltered from the consequences of their actions. It has always been the soldiers and the taxpayers who bore the brunt for their delusions of grandeur. To them, war is a cost-benefit analysis, and like their financial pyramid schemes that only get bigger and bigger, so too their gambles with our lives and treasure. It appears that they are quite willing to destabilize Pakistan, a nation with 170 million people, and risk war, a nuclear exchange, and a possible confrontation with China and Russia in the process.

 

 

 

 

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China’s 2nd Stealth Fighter Aircraft Takes to the Skies

 
This article has been written by people, who cannot believe that China could accomplish such a great feat. So Dear Reader, take their acerbic comments with a grain of salt. 

China’s second stealth fighter jet, the J-31 Falcon Eagle, looks remarkably like earlier models of a twin-engine variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Last week’s maiden flight of the JSF’s Chinese doppelgänger comes less than two years after the inaugural flight of China’s first twin-engine J-20 Black Eagle stealth fighter, built by Chengdu Aircraft.

“The general design is reminiscent of the F-35, with edge alignment and Chinese associated with this generation of low-observable aircraft,” said Doug Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace, at the U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Reports of Chinese industrial espionage related to the JSF give this aircraft added interest, he said.

Built by Shenyang Aircraft, little is known of the Falcon Eagle’s true capabilities beyond analysis of the photos.

 

“The rear section of the Chinese aircraft, however, shows little LO [low observable] design, though this may reflect its developmental nature,” Barrie said. “Signature management is also about a great deal more than basic shaping, with materials technology and emission control in terms of radio frequency and infrared also significant. The extent or limit to which China has developed already the requisite technologies to address these areas remains an area of conjecture.”

Chinese-language media outlets indicate the fighter might serve on China’s future aircraft carrier fleet. China has one carrier-borne fighter in development, the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark.

“I think it is plausible that the J-31 has been designed on the assumption that there will eventually be a carrier-based version, but I doubt if that is its raison d’etre,” said Roger Cliff, a China military specialist at the Project 2049 Institute in Washington.

“The double-wheel landing gear is suggestive, as are the large tail wings, but it has been pointed out that the J-31 might need a bigger main wing and other modifications before it can be considered optimized for a carrier role,” he said. The most important design factor is one analysts cannot yet see: the strength of the airframe.

“Carrier landings put tremendous stresses on the airframe that would tear apart an aircraft that was not designed for it,” Cliff said. “If the initial version of the J-31 has not been designed that way, then a new airframe design would be needed before it would be carrier-capable, double-wheel nose gear notwithstanding.”

This is one reason the J-15 Flying Shark has taken so long to develop, Cliff said. “It’s not just a matter of adding a tailhook and folding wings to a land-based aircraft.”

CHINESE F-60/J-21/J31 SHEN FEI FIFTH GENERATION STEALTH FIGHTER JET UNVEILED

 
9:35 PM  MJ QAMAR  5 COMMENTS

 

 

 

F-60/J31 Fifth Generation Stealth Fighter Jet seems to be using Klimov RD-93 engines which were imported by the China for Sino-Pak JF-17 Thunder Fighter Jets as a stop gap solution until WS-13 is flight worthy.
 
 
 

 

Images are Courtesy of Tixue.net
 F-60/J-21/31 Fifth Generation Stealth Fighter Jet will be employed as a low cost solution compared to the J-20 by the PLAAF.  F-60/J-21/J31 Fifth Generation Stealth Fighter Jet may also be offered for export to the Pakistan in future which serves as major testing ground for the new generation Chinese weapons.

Specifications of J-20 Mighty Dragon Stealth

 

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JF-17’s features and capabilities

IN FOCUS: Yang Wei, the designer of the JF-17

 

The atmosphere in the Dubai air show briefing room in November 2011 was electric. Journalists occupied every seat and photographers squeezed into the back of the room. Also present were a dozen senior Pakistan air force officials, who were forced to stand along one wall, as well as several Chinese executives in business suits.

The occasion was a briefing about the Chengdu/Pakistan Aeronautical Complex JF-17 Thunder fighter.

 Yang Wei, the designer of the JF-17, Chengdu J-10 and China’s stealthy J-20, gave a presentation about the JF-17’s features and capabilities.

The head of the Pakistan air force used warm words about the aircraft, and commended the close relationship between Islamabad and Beijing.

The good turnout reflected the defence media’s love affair with the JF-17 as the successor to cheap, value-for-money Cold War fighters such as the Northrop F-5 and Mikoyan MiG-21 

JF-17 Thunder, Sharpshot gallery on AirSpace

 

 

Female pilots of Pakistan Air Force.
Photo: Female pilots of Pakistan Air Force.

 

 

 

 Sharpshot gallery on AirSpace

The Pakistani air force is the first customer for the JF-17-17 in China’s future export efforts cannot be ­disputed – Pakistani officials take pains to stress the joint nature of the programme – Beijing is quietly trying to sell small numbers of different types of aircraft, including ­advanced jet trainers, utility helicopters and transport aircraft.

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Billypix

Chengdu J-10 

 

“The Chinese have had considerable success penetrating the less expensive end of the market, especially countries that have been isolated from other suppliers by political considerations,” says Stu Slade, Far East editor at research firm Forecast International. “They have also established a secure position as an aircraft supplier to cash-strapped users. Their position has been limited by the ageing technical standards of the aircraft they have been willing to export. They are still perceived as being the supplier of 1950s knock-offs, even though that has not been true for a decade or more.”

CATIC, in close cooperation with its Pakistani colleagues, appears determined to secure the “breakthrough” that Wezeman speaks of. It has told Flightglobal of its hopes of selling 300 JF-17s over the next five years. So far, only Pakistan has ordered the type, with firm orders for 150 examples, although it has said it could eventually buy up to 200. CATIC says key markets for the jet include Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

“CATIC sales and customer support teams are highly motivated and CATIC is looking forward to making the upcoming years fantastic for the JF-17 and its users,” says Zeng.

An industry source in Pakistan who is familiar with the JF-17 programme says joint Chinese/Pakistan sales efforts have made “considerable progress” following the type’s appearance at Dubai.

Joint marketing efforts at air shows are increasingly reminiscent of those mounted by major Western players such as BoeingEurofighter and Lockheed Martin. In addition to detailed briefings, in English, about the aircraft and its capabilities, CATIC and Pakistani officials are happy to give journalists one-to-one interviews. They will also discuss the aircraft over the phone and reply to email queries.

The theme of JF-17 marketing efforts is summed up by a keychain the Pakistan air force delegation passed out to visitors at 2010’s Zhuhai air show in China. This lists five selling points: affordable, survivable, flexible, supportable, lethal.

“The focus is on capability at affordable cost,” says the source in Pakistan. “Support is assured, the cost is affordable, and there are no embargoes on our side. We have a forum with China to discuss how we construct the sales teams that go into specific countries. We are comfortable partners.”

RESPECTABLE ARRAY

Although it is easy to dismiss the JF-17’s capabilities vis-à-vis those offered by more advanced Western types, let alone state-of-the-art aircraft such as the Lockheed F-35 or F-22, on paper it offers a respectable array of systems and capabilities that became common only in Western aircraft in the 1990s. The aircraft can carry a maximum external stores load of 3,600kg (7,930lb), including short- and beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles. Other weapons and sensors can include the LT-2 laser-guided bomb and WMD-7 day/night laser designation pod, C802A anti-ship missiles and the KG300G SPJ airborne self-protection jamming pod.

“An increasing number of developing countries are likely to welcome the promise of decent-quality Chinese military aircraft at competitive prices,” says Andrew Erickson, associate professor in the Strategic Research Department at the US Naval War College.

“Beijing appears willing to offer creative financing and training and other support packages that more established aircraft producers may not offer. Faced with a choice between fewer or no military aircraft and Chinese versions, growing numbers of countries in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America are likely to consider the China option,” he says.

In addition, CATIC and Pakistan both appear to be aware of the crucial issue of through-life support for their products. Historically, a major criticism of Russian aircraft is the lack of spares and delays in conducting major repairs. One former Royal Malaysian Air Force logistics officer told Flightglobal at 2011’s LIMA air show in Langkawi that it could take one year for a MiG-29 engine to be repaired if were sent back to Russia, adding: “The MiGs are a maintenance nightmare.”

China, clearly, sees after-sales support as an important differentiation point.

“CATIC offers high-quality life-span integrated support through its global network for all customers on a continuous basis, including spare parts supply, warranty services, field services, technical training, overhaul and repair, modification and upgrade, engineering consulting, technical documentation management and claims management,” it says.

In a worst-case scenario, [customers] must worry not only about maintaining good relations with China, but also with Russia. This substantially reduces China’s independent leverage in the lucrative and strategically potent area of military aircraft sales, which competitors are loath to cede to China,” says Erickson. He believes China will find it particularly challenging to make headway in Russia’s “near abroad” of former Soviet republics, with Moscow using its political clout in the region to ensure sales for Russian airframers.

However, SIPRI’s Wezeman notes that potential customers for the type tend to have good relations with both China and Russia.

China is also marketing the Hongdu L-15 lead-in fighter trainer and Guizhou FTC-2000 advanced jet trainer. The L-15 is powered by two Ivchenko Progress Al-222K-25F engines, and the FTC-2000 by a single Chinese-developed powerplant, the Guizhou Liyang WP-13F.

CATIC says six countries have tested the L-15, which it expects to be “exported very soon”. Both aircraft types can be purchased with a basic combat capability, offering a degree of flexibility to air forces with limited budgets.

The key, then, is for China – with strong Pakistani support – to secure that first major overseas deal for the JF-17. The goal of selling 300 within five years may seem fantastic, but Beijing and Islamabad are determined.

 References:
1., 3 Jul 2012 

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