News
June 13 , 2025
Pakistan Eyes More Chinese Weapon Systems after ‘Clear-Cut Victory over India’
By Tom Hussain
Islamabad: Pakistan is in talks with China over the acquisition of cutting-edge anti-ballistic missile systems, airborne early warning and control platforms, and stealth fighters to plug the holes in its air defenses exploited by India during their brief air war last month.
South Asia security experts said Islamabad hoped the procurement of 40 fifth-generation J-35 warplanes, KJ-500 early warning aircraft and the HQ-19 surface-to-air missile weapon systems would help deter any future Indian attacks by threatening heavy losses of expensive warplanes and missiles.
But New Delhi would also have to take into account Beijing’s motivations for positioning its best integrated air defense systems on India’s western flank, the analysts said.
According to Walter Ladwig, an associate professor of international relations at King’s College London, China’s forthcoming sale of advanced stealth jets, radar aircraft, and missile defenses to Pakistan is a “strategic message” for India.
Beijing was “effectively embedding top-tier Chinese military technology into India’s western flank, raising the stakes in any future conflict and constraining India’s ability to deter escalation”, he told This Week In Asia.
“However much China denies alignment, this move will be read in Delhi as further evidence that Beijing is prepared to underwrite Pakistan’s military posture despite Islamabad’s role in cross-border violence,” said Ladwig, who is also an associate fellow with the Navigating the Indo-Pacific program at the Royal United Services Institute, a British military think tank.
He said China’s offer to sell top-end equipment to Pakistan “confirms a broader pattern” whereby China “is willing to impose strategic risk on India while maintaining plausible deniability”.
“That calculus deepens mistrust and narrows the already limited space for meaningful engagement between the region’s two great powers,” Ladwig said.
Pakistan’s government announced the Chinese offer in an infographic posted by official social media accounts on June 6, the first day of a four-day public holiday for the Eid al-Adha festival. No further official comment has since been made.
Beijing is yet to comment, but Pakistan’s announcement sparked a three-day rally in the share prices of J-35 manufacturer AVIC Shenyang Aircraft Company and air defense early-warning systems developer Aerospace Nanhu Electronic Information Technology Company.
Analysts said India’s numerical superiority and more established air defenses would continue to give it a clear military advantage over Pakistan.
While the combination of fifth-generation fighter planes, early warning aircraft, and surface-to-air missiles was key to modern air power, equipment alone would not tip the battlefield in Pakistan’s favor, said Benjamin Jensen, senior defense and security fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
As a much larger country, India had “demonstrated the ability to hold Pakistani airfields at risk with multiple assets ranging from loitering munitions to cruise and ballistic missiles” during their May 7-11 air war, he told This Week in Asia.
While Pakistan would need additional equipment upgrades, there was also the question of whether the Chinese systems were “as good as advertised” and what type of maintenance and training would be needed, Jensen said.
Noting that air power was also about infrastructure and training, Jensen said China would “need to prove it can excel in this area if Pakistan is going to tip the balance of air power” against India.
Ladwig said Pakistan’s prospective acquisitions of advanced Chinese military technology were “less about leaping ahead [of India] and more about closing serious gaps in Pakistan’s air defenses”.
These purchases “aim to raise the cost of Indian air operations, not outmatch them”, he said, adding that India “still holds the advantage” in warplane fleet depth, strike capability, and integrated air defense built around a more mature and diverse system.
Dave Des Roches, a former senior Pentagon official, said Pakistan’s “real need” was for missile defense systems because most of its inhabited areas were very close to India and could be vulnerable to air or missile strikes. In comparison, India has major cities, military capabilities and industrial centers located far from Pakistan.
However, Pakistan could buy more Chinese J-35 fighters and KJ-500 early warning aircraft and aircraft beyond their need and fewer missile defense systems because stealth fighter aircraft were considered “sexier”, said Des Roches, who is currently a professor at the Near East South Asia Centre for Strategic Studies, the Pentagon’s regional research center.
He said Pakistan’s military was “clearly riding on a wave right now” after achieving what it saw as a “clear-cut victory over India” by shooting down several Indian warplanes – including at least one French-built Rafale – during a massive attempted fighter attack that was thwarted on May 7.
“They think they now have a solution to their lack of depth in the event of a war with India,” said Des Roches, a former senior country director for Pakistan for the Office of the US Secretary of Defense.
According to a report published last month by China Space News, a defense industry newspaper, Pakistan’s successful use of Chinese-made 4.5-generation J-10C and co-developed JF-17 fighters armed with PL-10 and PL-15 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles against a superior Indian air force was due to its use of China’s “ABC” data-link system.
This enabled Pakistan’s Chinese-made HQ-9 air defense radars to convey target information about Indian planes without Pakistani fighters having to give away their position when they switched on their radars in preparation to fire beyond-visual-range missiles. The missiles were subsequently guided to their targets by Pakistan’s Swedish-built Saab Erieye early warning planes flying well out of the range of Indian fighters, China Space News reported.
Ladwig said the so-called ABC system reflected a modern military goal of linking radars, fighters, and early warning aircraft into a seamless chain for targeting enemy facilities. Western forces had been working towards similar integration for years, he added.
“What’s notable here is that Pakistan, using largely Chinese-supplied systems, may have successfully pulled it off in combat,” Ladwig said.
What China seemed to be offering Pakistan now was a “more affordable, tightly integrated system”, which he described as “impressive, but not necessarily revolutionary”.
Ladwig said Pakistan’s shift toward Chinese defense systems had a clear operational logic as “it’s easier to integrate aircraft, radars, and missiles when they’re built to work together from the start”.
This was particularly important for coordinated air combat in real time, he added.
While Pakistan had managed to integrate Western and Chinese defense systems, “doing so is complicated and imperfect”.
By leaning towards Chinese platforms, system integration for Pakistan’s military would be simpler, Ladwig said.
But it may come at the cost of sidelining US-made systems like the F-16.
“That’s not just a technical issue – it’s a strategic decision about which ecosystem Pakistan wants to depend on,” Ladwig said.
Jensen pointed out that there was no easy answer to creating modern battle networks fusing intelligence and data.
“Even if Pakistan were to retool its entire air force to operate only Chinese equipment, it would still have to address training, command processes, and questions about how best to command and control multiple domains,” Jensen said.
“Modern operational art cannot be bought. It must be honed through trial and error.” – South China Morning Post
Courtesy South China Morning Post
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