According to Chinese military analyst Hou Zhijian, China is pushing forward exports of J-10C fighter jets for multiple purposes, including both military and political ones. But the biggest obstacle to J-10C exports currently lies in its engine power and competitions from Russia.
Hou points out that China’s domestic aircraft engines not only haven’t gained enough reputation and appeal in the international market, but also bear a very heavy historical burden-the negative evaluation of China’s domestic engines exported with J-6 and J-7 in the early years has been a huge obstacle to the export of China’s fighters .
In the efforts of exporting JF-17 fighters to Egypt, who once imported the K8 production line, the two sides was even negotiating export of the fighter’s production line, but the export program was eventually stuck in the part of engines provided by Russia and JF-17 was replaced by the MiG-29 family. And similar things have been repeated again and again in the Sino-Russian arms export competition for customers such as Sri Lanka.
In the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, the domestic political power of Russia was still very serious; under the environment of highly antagonistic and vicious competition among various military industrial enterprises, China could use economic means to bind itself with the some Russian enterprises for mutual interests, and thus break Russia’s blockade and suppression intentions at the national level.
However, with Putin’s subsequent strong integration of Russian military industrial enterprises and the strengthening of the Russian central government’s direct control of the enterprises, this room for tricks no longer exists. If the dependence on Russian-made engines continues to exist, no matter how hard the J-10C export work is pushed forward, it will inevitably face the same dilemma as JF-17 fighter.
As of today, although China can come up with the most advanced fighter platform and avionics system, it lacks much in the engine part. This serious inequality has greatly weakened the user confidence and competitiveness of China’s fighter products in the international market.
Hou concluded that there is only one solution to the plight of J-10C’s export – after Taihang Engine has really established a good user reputation in China, and has shown good reliability under various conditions, proving that its performance indicators are perfect and credible.
Only if you really use it well, the potential target customers will be willing to take risks, try to abandon the past stereotypes about Chinese aviation engines, and resolve to sign contracts. In this matter, there is no shortcuts.
“And this only solution is also a necessary price to solve the hidden dangers of China’s building of domestic air powers. In recent years, the AL-31 series of Russian-made engines exported to China have not only significantly dropped in quality control, but also have extremely delayed in delivery schedules,” said Hou.
“It is not only the export business of Chinese military aircraft that is seized by the Russian engines, but also the development of China’s domestic air power construction.”