In today’s world, a jet fighter is never just a jet fighter. Modern warplanes lie at the core of complex technological ecosystems.
A country that buys planes from another nation is buying far more than individual planes. The purchaser is also signing up for maintenance contracts, spare parts schedules, various types of weaponry designed to fit the plane in question, and data systems that have to be periodically fine-tuned and upgraded. The manufacturer will be dispatching engineers, service personnel, and military advisers to its customer for years after the arrival of the aircraft; pilots and mechanics from the buyer will be heading in the opposite direction.
Such purchases thus create complex dependencies between purchaser and provider. You cannot buy a bloc of fighter planes and expect to remain at arm’s length from the country that supplied them.
This is why it is worth paying close attention to recent reports that Pakistan is planning the sale of JF-17 multirole fighters to Saudi Arabia. The JF-17, which is produced in Pakistan, was jointly developed with the Chinese. The marketability of the planes has increased since last year’s brief war between India and Pakistan, when JF-17s demonstrated that they were capable of holding their own against advanced western fighter aircraft supplied to India by the French. The Sino-Pakistani planes are also said to be more cost-effective than many western equivalents.
But the significance of this deal, which could cost as much as $4 billion, goes well beyond technology. A Reuters report on the transaction noted: “The mutual defense deal was signed following Israel’s strikes on what it said were Hamas targets in Doha, an attack that shook the Gulf region.” American allies in the Gulf were shocked to learn that the United States had apparently given its go-ahead for the strikes. Though Saudi Arabia in particular has apparently been hedging its bets for some time, the Israeli attacks soon prompted a deeper strategic recalculation. On Sept. 17, the Saudis and Pakistanis announced the conclusion of a far-reaching mutual defense pact – said to have been under discussion for years.
The two countries have made common cause for decades, but the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement extended their military collaboration to a dramatic extent, effectively transforming their relationship into a full-fledged alliance – and perhaps even entailing an extension of Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella to the Kingdom.
The new fighter plane deal also upgrades China’s role in this new diversification strategy. It’s easy to see why Beijing would be keen to do this. China’s main regional ally, Iran, is showing its vulnerability these days, having just resorted to a brutal crackdown in order to suppress a vast popular uprising. And the Chinese are eager to do anything they can to counter U.S. influence in the Middle East.
The JF-17 sale will help. Even though the planes are assembled at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamara, Pakistan, major components are manufactured at China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC). Electronic systems and weapons are also produced in China.
China has cultivated a strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia since it sold its 3,000-km-range, liquid-fueled DF-3 medium range ballistic missiles to the Kingdom in 1988. In 2007, Beijing followed up with the delivery of DF-21 solid fuel missiles.
Saudi Arabia also uses long-range Chinese surveillance drones, short range anti-aircraft missiles, and the “Silent Hunter” drone defense laser weapon.
Yet the strategic implications of the sale of a large number of JF-17 Bock III fighters are much broader. If the sale goes through, many Saudi officers, pilots, and maintenance personnel will soon find themselves visiting Chengdu for training. The deal will also provide for much greater interaction between the Saudi military leadership and that of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
A JF-17 sale locks in dependence on Chinese electronic upgrades and weapons, easing the potential sale of electronic support aircraft as well as fifth-generation fighters like the Shenyang J-35.
It is also likely that Saudi Arabia would host exercises with the PLA Air Force, following the example of the Egypt-China “Wings of Civilization” air force exercises from April-May 2025. Such Saudi-Chinese bilateral military exercises, in turn, will strengthen the Saudi case to graduate from “dialogue partner” to full member, joining Pakistan in the China-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose main product is massive “Peace Mission” multilateral military exercises.
For Riyadh, increasing its bilateral military relationship with China affirms their massive bilateral economic relationship and will reinforce Chinese determination to support Pakistan’s nuclear missile arsenal, which, as mentioned above, could end up benefiting the Saudis as well.
For China, the timing of the deal is fortuitous. Its expanded security presence in the Middle East via the Saudi-Pakistan mutual defense pact could prove more useful than its strategic relationship with the diplomatically isolated Iranian theocratic regime.
China wants to increase the participation of Middle Eastern countries in the SCO. This will enable it to pursue its strategic aims with greater legitimacy and openness, to promote large multilateral military exercises, and to secure formal access to military bases in the region.
Washington is unlikely to take kindly to the prospect. China will almost certainly use any expanded presence to intensify espionage activities against major U.S. weapon systems, like the Lockheed Martin F-35A fighters the Americans intend to sell to Saudi Arabia.
If Riyadh is not able to work with Washington to devise measures that contain Chinese espionage operations, the U.S. may have little choice but to re-evaluate its major weapons sales decisions. And that, in turn, will also delight Beijing.
Richard D. Fisher, Jr.
Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
