China’s Arms Market in South Asia: Pakistan as a Showcase

Over the past three decades, the strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and Pakistan has evolved from a transactional, opportunistic relationship into a deeply integrated and strategic, economic and geopolitical alignment. For Beijing, Islamabad serves as a crucial regional proxy, providing a geographic conduit to the Arabian Sea via the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and acting as a counterbalance to India’s regional hegemony.

Illustration by The Geostrata

Consequently, Pakistan has transitioned from a military establishment heavily reliant on western hardware — a reliance disrupted by the Pressler Amendment of 1981, which called for modifications to USA’s Foreign Assistance Act 1961, towards curbing nuclear proliferation in South Asia by mandating the American President to halt military assistance to Pakistan, if the latter was found to be developing a nuclear bomb — to dominate the operational landscape by Chinese platforms.

Between 2019 and 2023, China accounted for over 80% of Pakistan’s arms imports, transforming the Pakistan armed forces into the primary international showcase of an expanding Chinese defence-industrial complex.

However, this “iron brotherhood” is increasingly characterised by a profound asymmetrical dependency that carries severe operational, financial and strategic costs for Islamabad. The deployment of Chinese-origin military technology across aerospace, naval, ground and air-defence has been repeatedly marred by systemic unreliability, structural defects, sluggish software architecture and highly obtuse after-sales support.

Rather than serving as an unassailable deterrent against adversaries, Pakistan’s military infrastructure has inadvertently become the laboratory that is exposing  China’s technological shortcomings in military hardware production to the global community.

SYSTEMIC ORIGINS OF TECHNOLOGICAL DEFICIENCIES IN CHINESE ARMS EXPORT

The chronic underperformance of China’s military hardware in Pakistan is not an anomaly composed of highly technical glitches. Rather, it is a direct symptom of deeply embedded systemic flaws, doctrinal shortcomings and institutional corruption within the Chinese defence manufacturing apparatus. To understand the manifestation of these equipment failures on the battlefields of South Asia, it is necessary to examine the industrial and institutional environment in which these weapon systems are conceptualised, developed and exported.  

QUANTITY ABOVE QUALITY AND THE ISSUE OF CORRUPTION

Driven by geopolitical manoeuvring rather than mechanical excellence, China’s defence Industry prioritises subsidised, high-volume production to secure natural resources and diplomatic influence, often at the expense of rigorous testing. This quantity vs quality approach is compounded by deep-seated institutional corruption- recently highlighted by high-profile purges- where procurement decisions are frequently swayed by kickbacks rather than technical merit.

Ultimately, this creates a ripple effect of compromised engineering and substandard materials, leaving international buyers with hardware that serves Beijing’s macro-economic goals better than it performs on the battlefield. 

AEROSPACE VULNERABILITIES: THE JF-17 THUNDER PARADIGM

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) represents the most visible and heavily advertised integration of Chinese military technology. The core of its airpower modernisation strategy relies heavily on the jointly developed CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder (known in China as the FC-1 Xiaolong), a fighter program born out of necessity after the Pressler Amendment blocked the supply of F-16 jets in the 1990s. However, operational data, maintenance reports and fleet availability metrics reveal critical vulnerabilities that severely degrade the PAF’s air superiority, interception and ground-attack capabilities.

The JF-17, which was originally intended as a cost-effective, multi-role aircraft, has become a significant operational liability due to severe structural and operational defects. The aircraft’s metallic airframe and poor thrust-to-weight ratio make it vulnerable to cumulative stress during high-G manoeuvres, causing severe fatigue, catastrophic cracking, and deformed wingtip hardpoints, and effectively grounding over half of the fleet. Compounding these physical flaws is a critical engine crisis; the Russian-origin Klimov RD-93 engine suffers from rapid thermal and mechanical degradation, and essential maintenance infrastructure has been completely paralysed by Western sanctions on Russia, leaving dozens of airframes without functional parts.

In addition to its mechanical vulnerability, the JF-17’s combat effectiveness is severely compromised by sub-standard avionics and critical interoperability failures. The Chinese KLJ-7 radar exhibits poor detection ranges and is highly susceptible to electronic jamming, severely degrading its Beyond-Visual-Range and precision strike capabilities. Furthermore, the jet relies on the proprietary Link-17 data network, which is significantly slower and highly incompatible with the superior NATO standard Link-16 utilised by the PAF’s F-16 fleet. This glaring incompatibility, combined with frequent main computer failures, prevents unified situational awareness and isolates the JF-17 during complex, multi-platform combat operations.

THE HOLLOW SHIELD: HQ-9, LY-80 AND THE COLLAPSE OF AIR DEFENSE

Despite aggressive marketing, Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied integrated air-defence network- comprising systems such as the HQ-9, HQ-16 and YLC-8E radars- has proven vulnerable to low-altitude intrusions and modern electronic warfare. This fundamental inadequacy was first exposed during the March 2022 Brahmos missile incident, when sluggish radar processing resulted in a complete failure to engage an accidentally launched, terrain-hugging Indian cruise missile.

These flaws culminated in catastrophic combat failures during Operation Sindoor (2025), when Indian forces utilising  SCALP stealth missiles, drone swarms and electronic jamming blinded and neutralised Pakistan’s defensive shield.

The subsequent damage to multiple PAF bases unequivocally demonstrated that Chinese air defence platforms lack the rapid data fusion and combat-hardened algorithms required to intercept and survive threats in highly intense contested combat environments.

THE NAVAL PARALYSIS

Pakistan’s Navy acquired four F-22P Zulfiqar-class frigates from China between 2009 and 13, to protect its maritime interests and maintain conventional deterrence at the cost of $750 million.  However,  these vessels suffer from chronic mechanical and structural failures that severely degrade their operational capabilities. The frigates’ diesel engines are highly unreliable, experiencing rapid degradation and overheating that drastically limit the fleet’s speed and overall endurance. Furthermore, defective fin stabilisers dangerously impair the ship’s hydrodynamic stability in the rough seas, jeopardising routine docking operations and eliminating the stable platform required for accurate weapon deployment.

Beyond propulsion issues, the frigates’ defective sensors and subsystems systematically leave them vulnerable across all threat domains. The ASO-94 anti-submarine sonar detects false targets due to acoustic interference from the ship’s own vibrating engines, while the primary search radars suffer from electromagnetic faults that force the navy to cannibalise parts to maintain basic functionality. 

Additionally, the FM-90(N) air defence missile system cannot lock into incoming threats due to faulty infrared sensors, and the 76mm main naval gun is plagued by misfires, jamming and poor accuracy. Ultimately, these failures fundamentally undermine the vessels’ core effectiveness in air defence, surface interdiction and anti-submarine warfare.

THE HIDDEN COSTS: ECONOMIC TRAP AND EROSION OF STRATEGIC AUTONOMY

Pakistan’s extensive reliance on Chinese military hardware has triggered a cycle of economic distress and strategic vulnerability that far outweighs initial financial savings. While seemingly affordable, the equipment incurs crippling hidden life cycle costs due to frequent breakdowns and poor after-sales support, severely draining Pakistan’s defence budget and grounding critical fleets.

Furthermore, this procurement strategy has resulted in severe vendor-lock-in, rendering Pakistani systems incompatible with Western technology and granting Beijing unprecedented coercive leverage over Islamabad’s military readiness.

This defence dependency directly exacerbates massive sovereign debt incurred through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, effectively stripping Pakistan of its geo-political autonomy. Ultimately, the proven unreliability of this equipment breeds operational hesitation and strategic paralysis within the military command, neutralising Pakistan’s conventional deterrence and leaving it critically exposed to highly integrated adversaries.

GLOBAL EXPORT IMPLICATIONS

Pakistan’s position as China’s primary defence client has inadvertently exposed severe flaws in Chinese military hardware, creating a highly visible and damaging cautionary tale for the global arms market. Developing nations that once viewed Beijing as a cost-effective, politically flexible supplier are now encountering the exact same crippling technical and logistical crises experienced by Pakistan. The armed forces of Myanmar, Thailand, and Nigeria are among those who have faced crippling operational setbacks ranging from structural cracks and radar malfunctions to catastrophic technological failures in fighter jets.

Consequently, these systemic defects are heavily altering international procurement decisions and prompting extreme reluctance among prospective buyers. Several nations, including Malaysia and Argentina, are now deeply scrutinising or actively avoiding Chinese platforms over concerns of poor-quality control, abysmal fleet readiness rates and the looming geopolitical threats of algorithmic “backdoors”.  Ultimately, the realisation that Chinese defence technology is often unreliable,  unproven in sustained combat, and tied to coercive conditions is severely hindering Beijing’s broader efforts to project power through international arms export.

CONCLUSION

Pakistan’s extensive reliance on Chinese military technology has exposed severe structural, mechanical and software deficiencies across key platforms; JF-17 Fighters, HQ-9 radars and F-22P frigates, etc. These systemic flaws are driven by a manufacturing ecosystem that prioritises rapid production and export volume over quality control and combat readiness. Consequently, Pakistan is left burdened with costly, high-maintenance hardware that fails under the stresses of modern warfare.

Beyond immediate tactical failures, this dependency has resulted in a cascading erosion of Pakistan’s strategic autonomy. By deeply integrating into China’s proprietary defence ecosystem and financing these acquisitions through predatory debt models linked to CPEC, Islamabad has essentially surrendered its military independence to Beijing. Ultimately, Pakistan’s experience serves as a stark warning to the global community about the hidden costs, operational paralysis and loss of sovereignty inherent to adopting Chinese military hardware.

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BY AYAAN ALI

COVERING PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

TEAM GEOSTRATA

info@thegeostrata.com