The United States Department of Defense has confirmed that China has formally offered Pakistan up to 40 fifth-generation J-35 stealth fighter aircraft, a development that represents one of the most consequential inflection points in South Asian military aviation since India inducted the French-built Rafale. The disclosure appears in the Pentagon’s 2025 report Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, quietly but deliberately signalling a rapidly accelerating convergence in Sino-Pakistani defence cooperation aimed at reshaping the regional balance of power.
Although rumours of a Chinese stealth fighter offer to Pakistan had circulated since late 2024 and were partially acknowledged by Pakistani officials in mid-2025, the Pentagon’s confirmation elevates the issue from speculative signalling to an established strategic trajectory. In doing so, it underscores how China’s export ambitions are increasingly aligned with Pakistan’s long-standing requirement to offset India’s qualitative and numerical advantages in airpower through asymmetric technological leaps.
The report situates the offer within China’s broader combat aircraft export posture, noting that “China offers three combat aircraft for export, including the fifth generation FC-31 and the fourth generation J-10C multirole combat aircrafts, and the China-Pakistan co-produced JF-17 light combat aircraft.” Defence planners interpret this formulation as implicitly encompassing the J-35, a carrier-capable and land-based stealth fighter derived from the FC-31 development stream and now positioned as China’s primary export-oriented fifth-generation platform.
Further context is provided by the Pentagon’s detailed accounting of earlier deliveries. It notes that by May 2025 China had delivered 20 J-10C fighters—its only J-10C exports—to Pakistan as part of two orders placed since 2020. That detail highlights how Islamabad has already become China’s principal operational testbed for advanced combat aviation exports, providing Beijing with real-world feedback while deepening long-term dependency relationships.
Crucially, the Pentagon frames these transactions as part of Beijing’s reliance on “flexible terms and creative side payments” to expand its defence-industrial footprint abroad. This model dovetails neatly with Pakistan’s fiscal constraints, particularly under IMF-linked austerity conditions, while embedding Islamabad more deeply within China’s Indo-Pacific counter-containment strategy.
The confirmation also signals a doctrinal shift in China’s export policy. Fifth-generation combat aviation, once treated as a strategically sequestered national asset, is now being deployed as a scalable geopolitical instrument. By positioning Pakistan as a launch customer for an export-oriented stealth fighter, Beijing is compressing the traditional maturation curve of such platforms, accepting measured technology diffusion risks in exchange for immediate strategic leverage against India and, indirectly, its Western security partners.
For Pakistan, the prospective induction of the J-35 is not simply a force-structure upgrade. It represents an attempt to reframe the airpower balance away from numerical parity toward survivability-centric deterrence. Stealth, first-look advantage and networked kill-chains are intended to compensate for India’s expanding inventory of advanced fourth-plus-generation fighters and its growing industrial base.
At the regional level, the Pentagon’s acknowledgement elevates the J-35 offer from bilateral arms diplomacy to strategic signalling. It implicitly warns that South Asia is entering a phase in which fifth-generation capabilities may proliferate asymmetrically rather than symmetrically, increasing escalation uncertainty during crises and compressing political and military decision-making timelines.
The 2025 China Military Power Report, released on 23 December, explicitly frames this development as part of a broader shift in Beijing’s defence-industrial behaviour—from cautious technology retention toward calculated diffusion of high-end capabilities to trusted partners. Pakistan occupies a uniquely privileged position within this emerging export hierarchy, benefiting from decades of strategic convergence driven by shared threat perceptions vis-à-vis India.
Rather than presenting the J-35 offer as an isolated transaction, the Pentagon situates it within a continuum of Chinese arms exports designed to reinforce alliance resilience, expand interoperability and embed recipient forces within Chinese logistics, training and sustainment ecosystems. The report’s explicit enumeration of Pakistan alongside operators of Caihong and Wing Loong strike-capable UAVs underscores how the J-35 would complement an existing, layered architecture of Chinese-origin ISR, strike and command-and-control assets already embedded in Pakistan’s force structure.
That architecture extends well beyond aviation. It includes four advanced frigates sold to Pakistan in 2018, sustained co-production arrangements such as the JF-17 Thunder programme, and intelligence-sharing mechanisms focused on Afghanistan and Xinjiang-linked security concerns. Collectively, these initiatives have transformed Pakistan from a passive arms importer into an active partner within China’s defence-industrial strategy.
The Pentagon’s assessment implicitly acknowledges that exporting a fifth-generation stealth platform to Pakistan would mark the first time China allows a foreign air force to operate an aircraft broadly comparable in mission profile—if not absolute maturity—to Western platforms such as the F-35. This, in turn, signals growing confidence in Beijing’s counter-intelligence controls and its technological margins over potential adversaries.
The confirmation directly reinforces Pakistan’s June 2025 announcement that China had proposed a comprehensive defence package comprising “40 fifth-generation Shenyang J-35 stealth aircraft, Shaanxi KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, and HQ-19 air defence systems.” That disclosure, initially foreshadowed by controlled leaks in December 2024, suggested that deliveries could begin within months—an ambitious timeline reflecting both urgency and political intent amid rising Indo-Pakistani and Sino-Indian tensions.
The inclusion of the KJ-500 AEW&C platform, equipped with a fixed AESA radar providing 360-degree coverage, would significantly enhance Pakistan’s battle-management capability. Operating within a networked sensor-shooter construct, the J-35 could exploit stealth penetration while relying on off-board sensing to minimise exposure. Meanwhile, the HQ-19 missile defence system—often described as China’s analogue to the US THAAD—would introduce a new layer of ballistic and hypersonic interception capability, complicating India’s evolving missile posture.
Taken together, these systems would constitute a vertically integrated airpower ecosystem. Beyond platform counts, the package reflects a doctrinal migration toward system-of-systems warfare, where survivability is amplified by persistent sensing and layered strategic shielding, compressing sensor-to-shooter timelines and enabling controlled escalation.
Derived from the Shenyang FC-31 programme, the J-35 is a twin-engine, multirole stealth fighter reportedly capable of speeds approaching Mach 1.8 with a combat radius exceeding 1,200 kilometres. Its internal weapons bays, reduced radar cross-section and advanced sensor fusion are designed to operate within China’s broader kill-chain doctrine—an approach Pakistan has gradually adopted through the J-10C and JF-17 Block III.
For India, the implications are stark. A stealth-enabled Pakistan Air Force would be positioned to challenge Indian air dominance by targeting high-value assets, degrading air-defence networks and contesting the survivability of platforms such as the Rafale and Su-30MKI. New Delhi’s accelerated AMCA programme and deeper engine cooperation with the United States reflect an acknowledgement that the regional airpower balance is entering a new, stealth-centric phase.
For Washington, the development underscores the limits of technology denial strategies and reinforces concerns that China is leveraging arms exports as instruments of influence rather than mere commercial transactions. The Pentagon’s confirmation that Beijing is willing to externalise near-peer capabilities to trusted partners signals a more assertive approach to shaping regional balances without direct confrontation.
Despite its strategic allure, the J-35 proposal faces constraints, including questions over engine maturity, stealth optimisation and long-term sustainment costs. Pakistan’s own economic pressures may complicate financing timelines, even under China’s flexible terms. Yet the strategic logic suggests Beijing may prioritise geopolitical returns over profitability.
Ultimately, the Pentagon’s confirmation marks a defining moment in Asian security affairs. As China and Pakistan move toward the fifth-generation era, South Asia’s airpower landscape is poised for intensified competition defined by stealth, networks and escalation control. The J-35 offer stands not only as a symbol of deepening Sino-Pakistani alignment, but as a catalyst forcing regional and global powers alike to recalibrate their strategic assumptions in one of the world’s most volatile theatres.
