Munir has rightly said "It more like you show confidence and commit to the cause." All companies work like it. Chinese business mentality is as such, they want to know before selling if they'll get money or not. It simple plain business. They knew once the funds are allocated to F-16s there is a little chance Pakistan will jump in on J-10B. PAF at that time was not confident on J-10 as a top tier AC. But once Chinese allowed us in on design and avionics, PAF did cut orders for F-16s. I remember when early J-10 cockpit pictures were released, we all concluded that it’s no better than JF-17 and then near exact layout was brought in on J-10s later since Pakistan committed to J-10B.
Sir, for J-10s Pakistan is given very generous deal, inshallah I'll write about it when I am permitted to. I must commend Chinese for their business ideas. They knew Pakistan back in 2005/6 is not interested in J-10s and that simply means no market for J-10 outside China as the world sees Pakistan as the launch customer of anything good coming from China. Examples are J6/F-6, J7/F-7, J7MGs/F-7PG and inshallah FC-1/JF-17s. There was no sales of JH-7 and J-8MII, even when they were offered to many and are serving PLAAF in numbers.
I think, it was PakDef where back in 2006, I wrote that there is serious evaluation of J-10 going on. PAF saw the potential and wanted R&D with Chinese on another version of partially same air frame but improved avionics. PAF brought in their info on an F-16 version avionics that was to be unveiled in Middle East. In fact the RFP sent to LM was forwarded to Chinese with minor changes (That’s not my assumption or speculation).
As per Allah's will and thankfully it was in a good way that we finally decided to peal away from US dependence. I can imagine if we would have put our eggs in US basket, what would have been the situation today. "Never again" was rightly exercised.
Right now, the planned acquisition of J-10B's first batch is in mid of 2013 Inshallah. Engine is a hurdle (this is my speculation). We might not want to go for AL31FN and as per my info WS-10 is not failed but having teething problems, bad ones. Other than that, I confirm the engine is built with high grade materials and new labs are being built to check the manufacturing process for it. This shows commitment and promise. Some PAF personal visiting these labs told me, they are impressed. Nanjing institute is prime contractor for Radar (both Air born and AD. AD team is here already and inshallah we'll see some joint project in AD as well)for PAF.
