Frankly the engineering base to produce a dedicated aircraft like the J-16EW or Growler doesn’t exist but enough does to produce something halfway. The South Koreans were or have sent a pod or two over but as such the process of taking a Chinese base then inviting experts from different countries to add onto it works for the PAF. One has to walk into Kamra to truly see the visiting faces; one sees a mix of eastern european languages incl Romanian, Afrikaans along with Chinese all thrown about in the consultants coming and going.correct; shielding plus all the electronics need to be re-tested in worse case scenario; in one of the EW pod testings, we were finding birdies all over the place which caused havoc in the navigation and comms.
Just because one doesn’t see the hotel bills and payslips doesn’t mean a LOT isn’t going on behind the scenes.