Dhaka Says It Is Making Progress on Plans to Buy ‘Well Performing’ Chinese J-10CE Jets

Though Dhaka said Pakistani-operated J-10CEs had downed Indian Rafale jets, New Delhi has disputed accounts of the losses it bore during the conflict.

The Wire Staff

Though Dhaka said Pakistani-operated J-10CEs had downed Indian Rafale jets, New Delhi has disputed accounts of the losses it bore during the conflict.

dhaka says it is making progress on plans to buy ‘well performing’ chinese j 10ce jets

Representational image: J-10CE for Pakistan air force in Zhuhai airshow 2024. Photo: Z3144228, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.

New Delhi: Bangladesh is moving forward with its intent to acquire Chinese J-10CE fighter jets given that the platform “performed very well in a combat situation”, a senior official in Dhaka has said, referring to the India-Pakistan military conflict of May last year.

Zahed ur Rahman, adviser to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman on policy and strategy, said Tuesday (August 25) that Dhaka has prepared a draft agreement for negotiations over purchasing J-10CEs.

“There is recent real experience in a combat situation. When India and Pakistan were at war, India's Dassault Rafale(s) was downed, and it was done by a Chinese J-10. This information is now established,” Rahman said at a press conference in Dhaka.

“So now, an MRCA [multi-role combat aircraft] produced by China performed very well in a combat situation against the Rafale, which is considered among the most advanced fighters of the 4.5-generation,” Rahman said, adding that the J-10CE is cheaper than either the Rafale or the comparable Eurofighter Typhoon.

Pakistan has claimed that its J-10CEs shot down multiple Indian fighter jets, including Rafales, during last year's military conflict.

India has acknowledged suffering losses in the air during the clashes but has rejected Rawalpindi's claim that Pakistani forces shot down six or more aircraft, or ‘Rafales in the plural’.

Currently Pakistan is the only foreign country that operates the J-10's export version. As is the case with that country, China is also the largest supplier of military hardware to Bangladesh. Any sale of J-10CEs to Dhaka would mark among the latter's largest defence procurement in years, Reuters notes.

It would also mark a deepening of ties between Bangladesh and China. Prime Minister Rahman, who took office after the February general elections, has already made a bilateral visit to Beijing, where the two sides signed a number of agreements.

The development takes place against the background of lingering tension in Indo-Bangladeshi relations, a major aspect of which is deposed premier Sheikh Hasina and her refuge in India.

Dhaka said earlier this month that talks over PM Rahman's proposed visit to New Delhi have become ‘vitiated’ because of Hasina delivering a public address from the Indian capital on August 5. Bangladesh has continued to press India for her extradition.

This article went live on August twenty-sixth, two thousand twenty six, at thirty-three minutes past two at night.

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