China's attempts to obtain foreign combat types: Draken, Mirage, Harrier, P-16 .

Deino

Deino

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I think we all know the successful attempts to obtain / purchase foreign combat types ... lesser known are such attempts esp. during the brief Sino-Western-honeymoon during the 1980s like the Harrier and the French deliveries of helicopters ... we also know that prior to the J-10 there were considerations to buy the Mirage 2000, but I was a bit surprised to find this during my ongoing search / research. It's an interesting note I previously did not know, regarding the attempt purchase the Swiss P-16 fighter bomber and Swedish J-35 fighters: :eek:

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In 1962, Red Chinese representatives from the second Ministry of Machine Building responsible for licensed aircraft production visited aircraft production plants in Sweden and Switzerland in order to make arrangements for Chinese production of advanced designs under development in both European countries. Top priority was assigned to obtaining rights and assistance to produce an export version of the Swedish SAAB J-35 Draken, a modern Rolls-Royce RB-146-powered double-delta-fighter equipped with afterburners and a highly sophisticated electronic fire-control system. Negotiations fell through before any positive steps could be taken. In Switzerland, the Chinese showed interest in the AFA P-16 Mark III Strike Fighter, but nothing came of the connection.
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Even more ...

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Recognition of the People’s Republic of China by France in January, 1964, seemed to offer another avenue of aircraft acquisition, and discussions at the French trade fair at Peking in April, 1964, centered on the sale of Dassault Mirage fighters and nuclear bombers to the Chinese.
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Source: Richard M. Bueschel, "Communist Chinese Air Force", Praeger, New York, p. 69 (1968) !!!


Does anyone have some more specific details and information on these three finally failed attempts ... and does anyone have more such ones ?? ???

Thanks in advance, ;)
Deino
 
Hey .. thanks a lot, I did not know that !

Regarding the secret Sino-US connections since a long time I have that strange feeling that esp. the US wouldn't like to be reminded (a situation that reminds me to former girl-friend I had ;D ) ... the question is what else was already delivered or even more under negotiations besides the well known things like the Boeing B.737 + CFM-56 engines, F-16-radar for the J-8B-Peace Pearl (were they ever delivered ?), the Super-7 (why was never an official diagram published from Grumman ?).

I remember the rumours about SAC's intention to acquire the licence to manufacture the F-16 ... there were reports about a new "clean-sheet-design" under consideration with CAc as a follow-on to the S-7 ... was maybe an US-powerplant considered for the J-10 ?? Who knows ?? ???

Deino
 
at the time, the J-35 Draken was one of the more impressive supersonic fighters avaiable through export. so not too surprised. even back then, china was looking to build the infrastrucutre it needed to become self-sufficent indstrially.
 
With the problems that the Nimrod AEW Mk1 had in testing with the GEC Marconi radar I would have thought that it was strange that the Chinese would look at the radar for their IL-76 based equivalent.
 
Not without surprise i've read that apparently China was interested in F-14 during the 1980s. An exploratory number of 24 was considered, and apparently it was even supposed to be full AIM-54 capable (likely though only older AIM-54A capable as probably by the time of an eventual delivery it was already replaced by the AIM-54C for USN).

Like other potential orders of that era, such as the aforementioned Mirage-2000 or the F-16/79, monetary and probably political issues prevented implementation. Still, a very interesting what-might-have-been to ponder.

https://inf.news/en/military/1ffa37c7ec71b6114246da5d7a533aa0.html
 
There are aspects of the technology that cannot be reproduced by copying from the original because they involve secret manufacturing procedures; during World War II, Japanese industry was unable to reproduce the captured turbo-superchargers from downed American aircraft.
 

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TomS said:
From what I found on a Chinese website, there was some delegation sent to Germany around 1989, talking about some sort of coproduction deal for Tornado in China. It's not exactly well-sourced, though.
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If China had sent a delegation a few years earlier (The Tianamen Square massacre happened in 1989) what are the odds that the deal would've gone through with the PRC licence-producing Tornados?
 
Naturally China will do this, just like we did (USA) with the Soviet block aircraft we collected for the USAF Red Hats and Red Eagles.
 
It was a bit of both but mostly the former to inform the latter. For example, they got a MiG23 from Egypt at one point- I don't know if this flew but they certainly exploited the airframe and used parts of it on the J8II (and the onward series).

It was an interesting time.
 
Archibald said:
I wish we could know more about China and Soviet recovery of Vietnam war aircraft wrecks - Phantoms and others.
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Well the Soviets certainly obtained enough examples of AIM-7s sufficiently intact both from F-4s shot-down and from duds (The AIM-7 had had problems with its' Mk-38 rocket-motors failing to fire upon launch) to reverse engineer the AIM-7E GCU.
 
Archibald said:
I wish we could know more about China and Soviet recovery of Vietnam war aircraft wrecks - Phantoms and others.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the Soviets told the Vietnamese not to give China anything, or to give only selected equipment.

The Soviets had a bit of an ad hoc program to fly captured aircraft- the F5 was definitely flown and my old memory says something about Iranian transfers of F4s and an F14 (there is a flight manual of the F14 in Russian but I'm not sure if that was because an airframe was transferred or they were written to prepare them to fly them in Iran) but I'm not entirely sure.
 
Archibald said:
I wish we could know more about China and Soviet recovery of Vietnam war aircraft wrecks - Phantoms and others.
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China tried to reverse engineer the Sparrow based on examples obtained from Vietnam but largely failed. Project saw revival as PL-11 when they acquired Aspide from Italy but it came about so late that PL-12 was ready shortly after.
 
In the 1980s, East Germany, a PLA delegation inspected the MiG-29.
 

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French Deltas in the Far East: China's Evaluation of the Mirage 2000

China's rapprochement with the West after the break in relations with the USSR opened the door for the Asian giant to develop joint projects with American companies, as in the case of the Grumman Super 7, or to consider acquiring cutting-edge aircraft like the Harrier.

From the People's Liberation Army Air Force's (PLAAF) purchase list, one item stood out above the rest: a high-performance interceptor fighter. Among all the bidders, one enjoyed Beijing's favor: the Dassault Mirage 2000

https://nobarrelrolls.blogspot.com/2025/08/deltas-galos-en-el-lejano-oriente-la.html

China_test_mirage_2000_blog_marca.jpg
 
Harrier, China, UK: The Economic Connection of the 1970s

By severing ties with the USSR, China not only made a strong political statement but also gained access to Western arms manufacturers, allowing it to overcome the technological gap in its defense industry at the time. Of all the weapons systems Beijing attempted to acquire, one set off phone lines in Washington, Moscow, and London simultaneously: the Hawker Siddeley Harrier.

https://nobarrelrolls.blogspot.com/2024/12/harrier-china-reino-unido-la-conexion.html
 

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