Ahmadine-Jets

In late October, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group will sell 24 of its new-generation Jian-10 (J-10) fighter aircraft to Iran in a contract valued at $1 billion. The Moscow-based daily received the information from a source inside HESA–a division of the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing consortium. This would be the first purchase of a new-generation combat system by the Iranian air force since the early 1990s. (China’s state-run Xinhua news agency denounced the story as “false and irresponsible” and denied that there have been any negotiations, but did not outright deny the sale.)

Last week, the Paris-based defense and strategy publication TTU reported that China is planning to supply the J-10 to Syria as well. The Chengdu fighter would replace an aging arsenal of Russian aircraft largely acquired by Damascus during the Soviet era. Intelligence on the growing cooperation between Syria and Iran indicates that Tehran will finance this Syrian procurement. Having the two allied nations operate the same front-line fighter aircraft will create economies of scale, for instance by allowing maintenance and servicing facilities to be shared.

Russia’s connection to the J-10 and the reason for the report originating from Kommersant is that the J-10s are powered by the AL-31FN jet engine built by the Salyut Production Association in Moscow, generally considered to be the most advanced military engine manufacturer in Russia. Chinese industry has struggled but failed to develop a reliable, high-performance jet engine. Both of China’s new-generation fighters–the J-10 and the FC-1/JF-17–are powered with Russian engines.

Iran has until now been reluctant to purchase much in the way of new aircraft, having been content to maintain their older-model U.S.-built aircraft that they acquired during the time of the shah. Iran also has its own indigenous jet program, the Saeqeh (Lightning). But this plane is a copy of the old Northrop F-5, and is at least two generations removed from state-of-the-art military technology.

The Chinese J-10s are to be delivered between 2008 and 2010 and appear to be meant to replace the aging J-7 fighters that were acquired from China more than two decades ago in the Khomeini era. The J-7, interestingly, is flown not by the regular Iranian air force, but by the air arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The J-10’s mission, according to a Russian military analyst who spoke to the Novosti news agency in Moscow, will be to defend Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor site, which is being completed with Russian assistance.

Chinese-Iranian cooperation is not news. Iran has been a buyer of Chinese weapons since the early days of the Islamic Republic, and Chinese-designed weapons have been produced under license in Iranian factories. Last July during the military conflict with Hezbollah, an Israeli naval vessel was heavily damaged by an Iranian-produced model of the Chinese C802 antiship missile.

But the J-10 is a far greater problem for Israel and other nations worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It’s a matter of no small irony that Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) helped make the J-10 the advanced fighter that it is.

In 1987 IAI was forced to cancel a program to build an indigenous fighter, the Lavi (Lion). The Lavi was a modified version of the Lockheed Martin F-16 already being used by the Israeli Air Force, but cost significantly more than the U.S.-made fighter. So the Israeli Air Force opted to stick with the off-the-shelf model.

Some time later, the technical details of the Lavi were provided to Chengdu, although no government has ever officially acknowledged this fact. When the J-10 was rolled out in a public ceremony in Beijing late last year, a report in the Singapore Straits Times noted the obvious: “The Jian-10 aircraft that China unveiled recently bears a striking resemblance to the Lavi. . . . The Jian-10’s sophisticated pilot helmet, which allows missiles to be aimed in the direction of the pilot’s eyes, is almost certainly of Israeli origin. So are the missiles themselves, which appear to be based on the Python 4 variety manufactured by Israel’s Rafael Armaments Development Authority. Neither side will admit it, but the Lavi aircraft died in Israel and has now been reborn in China.”

Inspiration for the J-10, which is now in service with China’s air force in large numbers, did not come just from Israel. When asked early this year for his assessment of the J-10, Pan Kong-hsiao, director of the Taiwanese National Defense University’s air force department, told the Taipei Times that “the aircraft is the result of a combination of technology from four countries–Israel, the United States, Russia, and China.”

Significant U.S. defense technology was acquired by Beijing prior to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, but defense-related sales have been embargoed since then. The European Union also agreed to embargo defense sales to China, but in recent years there has been no shortage of efforts by the EU to lift that embargo–despite the abundant evidence that anything made in China will be sold to Iran.

Former French president Jacques Chirac was industrious in this regard. On January 27, 2004, he held a joint conference with Chinese president Hu Jintao to celebrate the “Year of China” in Paris and used the occasion to publicly call for the lifting of the EU arms embargo. France and Germany later succeeded in pushing the EU to review the matter.

While the two EU giants favored an outright end to the ban, a 1998 EU law threw up another obstacle to arms sales to China. European arms exports remain tightly controlled by a 1998 code of conduct barring the sale of equipment that could be used in regional conflicts or domestic repression–a serious hurdle when it comes to China. Having been stymied by this regulation, France has tried to pass defense technology to China via a back door.

France’s Délégation Générale pour l’Armement (DGA), which tightly controls all arms export sales, has been trying for more than a year to complete a sale of the Thales RC400 radar and MBDA Mica missiles to Pakistan for the JF-17 fighter. Although the JF-17 is being built under license in Pakistan, it is also a Chengdu design. The Pakistani Aeronautical Complex and its Chinese partners have comprehensive agreements that grant access for both parties to any technology acquired by the other.

Since the same French radar and missiles are on board the Taiwanese Air Force’s French-built Dassault Mirage 2000 aircraft, acquisition of this technology by Beijing would be a considerable blow to the defense of the island nation. India, Pakistan’s neighbor and rival, also operates the Mirage 2000. If France’s DGA were to allow Pakistan to acquire the radar and missiles, Taiwan and India would see their air force’s investment in French jets wiped out.

When this bit of skullduggery was reported for the first time last month by Jane’s and the Associated Press, French industry first confirmed and then attempted to deny the sale had been proposed. But a Pakistani official has since confirmed to U.S.-based Defense News that prices for this technology had been proposed to them by the Délégation Générale pour l’Armement as far back as 18 months ago. The official added that export clearance for the transfer of this technology has now been granted. The inability of Pakistani authorities to control much of anything inside their country is legend, but the same official nonetheless disingenuously tried to calm the fears of many by stating that Pakistan and France have drawn up a memorandum of understanding in which Islamabad promises not to release technology to China.

The story of the Lavi demonstrates that the irresponsible sale of defense technology and know-how will inevitably come back in some form that haunts you. France and other EU nations do not seem to have learned that lesson. Perhaps Iran’s acquisition of the J-10 will serve as a sobering reminder.

Reuben F. Johnson, a defense and aerospace technology writer, is a regular contributor to THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD at weeklystandard.com.