Muslim country, India’s friend, denied advanced J-10 fighter jets by China, the country is…, wanted to replace…

China has denied any agreement.

Cairo: China has dealt a heavy blow to India’s friendly country Egypt as it has refused to sell J-10 fighter jets to Egypt. Earlier, there were reports that China had finalized the sale of J-10C fighter jets to strengthen the Egyptian Air Force. According to several sources, this deal reportedly took place in August 2024 when Egypt decided to replace its old American-made F-16 fighter jets.

However, the latest reports indicate that a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Defense has denied the occurrence of such military equipment sales between Beijing and Cairo.

Egyptian Air Force

The Egyptian Air Force is engaged in large-scale upgradation work. Its purpose is to replace outdated weapons with state-of-the-art technology. This includes Soviet-origin aircraft like MiG-29M and Western fighter aircraft like Mirage 2000. Egypt has also signed a deal to purchase new Rafale aircraft from France. But is still awaiting delivery. In addition, Egypt has faced sanctions on receiving weapons packages and modernization upgrades. As a result, Cairo is looking for new suppliers to purchase modern military equipment.

There was discussion about Egypt purchasing the J-10C. It was claimed in August-September 2024 that the Egyptian Air Force is set to buy China’s Chengdu J-10C fighter jets. If this happens, Egypt will become the second international operator of the Chinese J-10. However, neither the Egyptian nor the Chinese government has issued an official statement on the matter in recent months.

Additionally, these rumours suggested that the Chinese proposal had overshadowed Egypt’s modernization of its F-16 to the Block 70 Viper version, and recently, Egypt had already received its first PL-15 air-to-air missiles.

China rejects reports of an agreement with Egypt. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Defense clarified that no agreement or contract has been signed to equip the Egyptian Air Force with the J-10C or its export version, “CE.”

In the words of Wu Qian, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Defense, “This does not match the facts. Completely fake news.”

Beyond this situation, in the current scenario, the main foreign operator of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) frontline fighter is the Pakistan Air Force, which has acquired 20 to 25 J-10CE units that have been inducted since the beginning of 2022.