you know what's hillarious? Chinese weapons were unproven because they were never used in real world combat. It's because China has not fought or invaded a country. NATO weapons are "proven" in real world combat, because they are always invading weaker countries. Now you have the overhyped and overpriced French Rafale fighter jet, top of the line in European technology. It's big selling point is that it was proven in real world combat. You know what that real world combat is? Bombing Libya, a country with a weak airforce and little if any air defence!

In it's very first Air to Air combat against a modern jet, it was defeated 3-0 by China's J-10C fighter jet. Europe's top of the line 4.5 gen fighter jet, was defeated by China's mid teir fighter jet (China has better jets including 5th and already testing their 6th gen). This is a Sputnik/Deepseek moment for Chinese military hardware.

The Rafale and Eurofighter typhoon are considered NATO's top 4.5 gen jets, only behind 5th gen F-35 and F-22. India pulled out of Russia's Su-57 and went with the "proven' Rafale fighter, spending a whopping $200+ million USD on each Rafale, absolutely got ripped off by France! Big corruption into the Rafale purchase no doubt. $200+ million French jets got taken out by $40 million Chinese jet lol.

Just before the flareup with Pakistan, India agreed to purchase 20 more Rafale jets for their Navy. Wonder if it'll be canceled lol

“China attracts customers for its military equipment with cut-rate pricing and financing but there are hidden costs — especially when gear malfunctions,” Cindy Zheng, then a researcher at Rand Corp., wrote in a research paper just before joining the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in the latter stages of the Biden administration.

Cindy no matter how hard you shill for empire, you'll never be white

Oh person writing for bloomberg, this is a good thing for china. A proletarian dictatorship should not become a major arms trader. It should design and stockpile weapons primarily for its own defensive use. American arms manufacturing has to deal with a myriad of issues due to its nature as a global supply chain and global war machine.

I find it reassuring that despite having such a massive economy and export dominance in almost all industries, and despite having such large quantities of arms production, virtually all of it is for defensive purposes. Although this may just be cope.