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| Su-35 (Wiki Info - Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Trefor Moss
Amidst all the fanfare surrounding China’s increasingly impressive roster of homemade aircraft, Beijing has doggedly maintained its pursuit of Russia’s best military plane, the Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet. Reports this week suggest that this persistence may finally have paid off, and that a deal with the Russians is now close to being sealed.
The deal’s revival reveals much about the motivations of Beijing and Moscow. Both sides had good reason to give up on the whole idea after the agreement first ran into trouble earlier this year. Landing indigenously developed J-15s on an aircraft carrier, or testing new stealth fighters – these are kind of the boosterish headlines that China’s leadership enjoys, as they feed into the narrative of China as an up-and-coming power with the capability to leap technological hurdles. Buying off-the-shelf planes from Russia does the exact opposite: It is an admission that China still has limitations, and that is still a playing catch-up.
As for the Russians, the thought of their prize fighter jet being stripped down, copied and mass-produced with nothing more than a thin coat of Chinese paint looked like it would be too much for Moscow to stomach, as it refused to sell Beijing small numbers of the aircraft.
Read the full story at The Diplomat