I don't have a source but in my opinion for obvious political reasons, Pakistan will not be the signing party. The agreement will be signed between China and Argentina as China will provide the loan (if any). Also, certain western equipment in Thunder would be swapped with the Chinese version hence the JF17 would be FC version, not the Thunder version.
There are no two versions of the aircraft. There is only the JF-17 thunder. FC-1 is a designation. Not a version. The aircraft will still be built in Pakistan and use all the same components, only the ejection seat will be changed as was done in the Burmese models (which were also built in Pakistan).
The only other component in the JF that had some significant western tech in it was the EW suite (has input from Spain’s Indra system) which has already been swapped for a new Chinese internal EW in all models of block 3, including the ones we will be using.
The ejection seat and even the engine (which may be changeable to the Chinese one in the future As an option) do not make the aircraft a different version, it’s just like you spec a car with different options depending on your need. Countries can opt for the Chinese parts if there is an issue with sanctions (As with the british seats here) or simply because they want to.
However it is true that the marketing and dealing for this sale was done by China, for political reasons and our ties to the UK, when this was not an issue, as in the case of Nigeria and Malaysia, Pakistan did all the marketing, dealing, delivery and even training by itself, and will continue to do so. This is another advantage of a joint project. Keep in mind if the sale does go through, regardless of how Argentina pays, Pakistan
will get its share of the money and profits according to whatever deal PAC and CAC have.
Keep in mind the JF-17 is a proper joint-venture, down to program ownership rights. China cannot sell this aircraft to any country without Pakistani permission, and vice versa.
While I agree there was more Chinese input on the design side of this aircraft, people think that Pakistan wasn’t involved at all, well let me tell you, the DSI and the LERX were both Pakistani designs and additions, and they are not small components of the aircraft, the Chinese prototype didn’t have them. The Countermeasure system of the aircraft was of Pakistani origin as well if I recall correctly, so was the original IFR system.
Since the aircraft being built for the PAFs needs, the majority of the flight testing team was also Pakistani pilots.
The funding of the program was also shared
equally. Since then Pakistan has been working on increasing its compatibility with its own data link and weapon systems as well as trying to increase the indigenous content in it or at least increasing the amount of the aircraft manufactured locally using license or co-production (RWRs, Radars, HMDs and HUDs etc).
So to all those who sadly still think this is just a Chinese aircraft that we put our name on, please, think again, at least there was an effort, something that sadly cannot be said in most of what we make or buy. With what limited expertise we had we decided to make an effort, now we have more expertise, and hopefully someone will make another such effort sometime soon, this is how baby-steps are taken towards building your own industry after all. China started from copying and reverse engineering foreign tech, that too poorly at the start, look where they are now. Alas we have too many old-fashioned minds and too much corruption at every level to advance like they did. But one can hope.
