Schumacher
Senior Member
If it is for export only I find it dubious since this would be out of reach for most of China's customers. The only way for China to penetrate the market capable of buying this is to actually have it face off and win with the fighters that sell. It has to go up against Western fighters. How's that going to happen? That's either selling to a country that has them if they could get that to happen in the first place or a real war situation. The big customers would be the Arabs oil states. But let's face it. When they buy there's a bit of brand name factor involved and China doesn't have that. I remember there was a Chinese guy in the US trying to sell bottled water from China. He was going for the exotic maybe medicinal angle. That's not what people think of when it comes to water from China. Of course I never heard about the water again.
Don't be so sure even if it's only for export which I doubt. When this thing is ready, it'll be at least about 2018 which will be a very different world in terms of perception and reality of Chinese products, not to mention global geopolitics.
Some potential buyers are like PAF who will need stealth if/when IAF gets T50s. If the Arabs don't share some of their huge defence budgets with China, don't whine if China sells to Iran/Iraq. I can see some South Americans being interested in stealth where the F35 may not be viable in terms of price/politics.