China doesnt have democracy, we do and democracy is the most un-efficient form of govt. China rulling party hasnt change much and pretty much the same thus their program can have continuation and with represive/iron hand it become more effective. Its pretty much like Orde Baru era.
Now let me take you back to Order Baru era. Economic growth can reach 7%+/year couple of time in a row, did we even see that 7% economic growth number since Reformasi? Remember Nurtanio a.k.a PT.DI? N250, N2130 (Jet Engine 80-130 passanger) are their design and one of them is ready for production. Now let me take you to todays Indonesia aero industry N219, now compare it to N250 & N2130. Huge different? One is product of Dictator kinda govt and the other with Democracy kinda govt. See why its hard for us to create R&D? First our democracy is young and immature, second we have changed Regime couple of time where China remain the same.
Thats why its hard to compete with china, simply because we are not China. But I do get your point, I hope you get mine.
IFX, Can we afford our own fighter?
I have said in my previous post that this just speculation and amateur analyze, but lets get started.
IFX is too ambitious, even LFX. Why? we simply cant afford it. The reason we joined IFX is to have knowledge
to design and make our own fighter. Lets just say we paid our due to Korea and the project finish. What next? We rakit our IFX? With the hefty payment and the 48 IFX we must purchased simply wont leave us any room in our budget to go ahead and start our own IFX/LFX project. What are our aero engineers with those expensive knowledge from Korea going to do with no project to apply their knowledge? Wouldnt be a waste if those knowlege be use just to Rakit Pesawat tempur? The idea is to be able to design and produce new fighter, but no budget left so?.......
Now lets pretend miracle happen and we have design our own Fighter. We must invest even more to create production line, etc. Once the production line is ready and the fighter got certified we must purchase our new fighters in large amount to meet economic scale, another money we must spend but dont have much of it. If this stage fail then we are going to have a fighter thats very expensive, perhaps it will be cheaper to just buy it from others. Kemandirian? with those avionic and engine still have to be imported....
See the result? First case we continue IFX but still cant afford to make our own fighter in which is the reason we joined the project in the first place -
mission failed. Second case we have made the design and can produce it but cant afford to purchase large enough to economically sustain the project. Even if we do it might take too long and the technology might already be old if not absolete -
mission failed (Example: Indian Tejas).
Maybe our current govt can see it, where previous one missed it. With this new perspective the question remain, can we afford our own fighter?