I don't think people understands how much of a sea changing event this is. It was always assumed in Global South that Western aircraft was untouchable which was why Egypt and others would accept Western jets without BVR missiles. It was preposterous but they had no choice.
Egypt took western jets b/c since 1970s it was in western camp and on US financial support.
Also, while Egyptian rafales are w/o meteors(which aren't native to that platform in the first place), micas are still BVR. Short range is just an original trait of Rafale, the way it was designed to fight.
Now with the J-10/PL-15, you can have an equivalent (or better) aircraft/missile combination to the West. I think this would allow Egypt and others to make that effort to change. It is, again, a sea change in air power especially for the Global South.
Let's tread a bit carefully here. The problem as of 2020s isn't range; the problem is massed stealth backed by crushing american warfighting ecosystem.
Until certain point in CW, Soviet Union produced war fighting systems which could make a smaller country resist. Then, adjusting to shift in technology, own needs, but above all else - much higher prosperity compared to 1950s, Soviet way of fighting started requiring too much money for other countries to adopt it, and adoption cycle was fast, b/c US and NATO had dismantling this very way of warfighting as priority. To a large extent, USSR just subsidised its allies and clients both directly(loans) and indirectly(flawed system of estimating value of produced goods, which by default gauged prices wrongly). This way of doing business ultimately killed USSR itself, when the rift between reality and declaration turned into an abyss (thank you Andor).
Chinese weapon systems, as of 2025, are affordable, which is just as much impact of its production prowess as it is an impact of the past - China wasn't as prosperous as now on everyone's memory, and on everyone's memory no one but Pakistan(Albania etc) even considered chinese aircraft.
But Chinese system of warfighting
isn't cheap. Pakistan is poor country per capita, sure, but it's still one hell of a country (247.5 million - 25% over WW2 Soviet Union!), and Pakistan has long special relationship with China dating to the time when PRC was seriously poor. This isn't a kind of relationship one gets just by jumping on a now prestigious train.
