When Saudi Arabia finds Pakistan, can it be said that only Pakistan can buy the best weapons from China?

Apparently not.

In the arms trade, China is much kinder than Europe, the United States, and Russia, not only clearly marking prices, but also never mentioning additional conditions.

If there is a problem, it is that Huaxia rarely exports equipment for its own use.

Those sold on the international market are basically "foreign trade-type," especially the latest weapons and equipment.

The so-called "foreign trade type" is not actually a model specially developed for export, but a loser in internal competition, that is, a model that has not been adopted by the Chinese military.

There are many such "foreign trade" equipment, such as the FC-31 fighter.

Although Huaxia officials have never admitted it, the FC-31 is a candidate for the fifth-generation fighter, but it lost to the J-20 in the internal competition, mainly because the design idea is too conservative, positioned as a medium-sized fighter, the improvement potential is too small, and the power system is more demanding.

There are both paradoxes in tactical thinking and technical difficulties.

Engines, for example, are a big problem.

At the time of the launch of the fifth-generation fighter project, Huaxia had already passed the S-10 project and had a certain amount of technical accumulation in the field of high-thrust military engines, but the medium-thrust engine was blank, so it was easier to develop a high-thrust engine for the J-20 than to develop a medium-thrust engine for the FC-31, and the use of high-thrust engines was more extensive than that of medium-thrust engines.

Two can propel a heavy fighter, one can propel a light fighter, and the same core engine can be used to develop large bypass ratio engines, marine gas turbines, etc., which can become the power of bombers, transport planes and warships, and even derive civil aviation engines.

Obviously, medium-thrust military engines are not so versatile.

The same is true with existing engines.

F100 and F110 have become the standard equipment of F-15, F-16 and F-14, AL-31F is the power source of the Su-27 family, J-11 series and J-10, and the medium-thrust engines of the same era, like M88 and EJ200 are only used in one type of fighter, while the F404 and F414 are mainly F/A-18 series fighters, as well as the poorly sold "Gripen" fighter, as well as the LCA that has not been mass-produced for 20 years.

It can be said that the lack of matching engines was one of the main factors in the FC-31's loss of internal competition.

It's just that the FC-31 is not advanced enough?

Apparently not.

With the enhancement of China's national strength, especially the enhancement of scientific research strength, it is no longer a problem to develop a medium-thrust military engine with a thrust-to-weight ratio of 10.

It is precisely in this way that the FC-31, which is positioned as a medium multirole fighter, has finally waited for spring.

As long as the supporting engine is successfully developed, even if it is limited by "tonnage", the FC-31 cannot compete with heavy fighters such as the J-20 and F-22A, and it is by no means worse than the F-35A of the same heavyweight, or even better, because the FC-31 does not sacrifice performance for the common use of the three services.

The F-35 series sacrifices a lot of performance in order to be common to all three services, especially dragged down by the STOVL type.

It can be seen that China's "foreign trade" equipment is fundamentally different from the "monkey version" of Soviet Russia and the "international version" of Europe and the United States.

In fact, some "foreign trade types" are even more advanced than self-use types.

The most representative is actually the VT-4 main battle tank.

Like the FC-31, the VT-4 was a loser in internal competition, but the reason for the failure was diametrically opposite, that is, the VT-4 was too advanced.

To be precise, the VT-4 used too much advanced technology in the design stage, which led to too much risk in research and development.

At that time, what the Chinese Army needed was a genuine third-generation main battle tank, which it needed to obtain as soon as possible to replace a large number of five-pair wheels that were about to be decommissioned.

If the development work cannot be completed on time, what is the talk of mass production?

As a result, the Chinese Army chose the ZTZ-99, which was relatively technically conservative and had a much lower risk of development.

The same is true of later developments.

The ZTZ-99 was quickly developed, put into mass production after the design was finalized, and was quickly supplied to several ace troops.

At the end of the last century, in that era of change, the ZTZ-99 put into service in the army gave the Chinese Army a land combat weapon with good reliability and ability to compete head-on with any kind of third-generation main battle tank, providing a solid guarantee for resisting powerful external threats.

And what about the VT-4?

Because the technology was too advanced, it was finalized after more than ten years of service with the ZTZ-99.

It can be seen that if the VT-4 had been chosen at that time, it would have been very likely that the Chinese Army would not have been able to obtain a genuine third-generation main battle tank until the beginning of this century.

In the international situation at the end of the last century, China is afraid that it will import T-80U from Ukraine, like Pakistan.

In addition, the high technology content has a direct impact on the high price.

The simplified version of the VT-4, that is, the dozens of vehicles sold to Thailand, cost nearly $6 million per unit.

What is this concept?

The 99A used by the Chinese Army has an internal procurement price of about 20 million at most, about 3 million US dollars, which is only half of the simplified version of the VT-4.

Of course, the internal purchase price is certainly much cheaper than the export price.

If it reaches the 99A configuration, that is, the standard version of the VT-4, the starting price is $8.5 million, and the full-life after-sales service will exceed $12 million.

In addition, the VT-4 is available in a "deluxe version" with a starting price of $12.5 million and a lifetime of at least $15 million.

This price is absolutely ridiculously expensive.

You must know that when "Leclerc", which is famous for its "expensive", was sold to the UAE at the beginning of this century, the unit price of the whole system was less than 10 million US dollars; The latest configuration of M1A2 purchased by Saudi Arabia from the United States has a unit price of only 12 million US dollars; Germany's latest "Leopard" 2A7+, when it was sold to Qatar, the actual transaction price was only 15 million US dollars, and it was all kinds of ultra-luxury configurations.

It can be seen that VT-4 has made Huaxia's main battle tank stand at the same height as Europe and the United States in terms of price.

If you dare to mark such a high price, you naturally have to have good enough performance.

In fact, the "Tuhao version" of the VT-4 is in many ways better than the 99A used by Huaxia, using some advanced equipment developed for the 99B.

Of course, 99B is still in trial production in small batches and is not supplied to the troops.

It can be seen from this that Huaxia is not unwilling to sell advanced equipment, as long as it is included in the "foreign trade equipment list", it will be sold to the outside world.

In addition, Huaxia has also been selling weapons to Saudi Arabia.

A few decades ago, Huaxia even sold dozens of DF-3s to Saudi Arabia, and recently sold the best "Pterodactyl" 2 UAV to Saudi Arabia, and just a few years ago, there was news that Saudi Arabia would spend billions of dollars to purchase DF-21C from Huaxia to replace DF-3.

Saudi Arabia is looking for Pakistan at this time, in fact, there is only one reason.

That is, after the outbreak of the Iraqi civil war, Huaxia took the lead in issuing a statement to suspend military trade with countries related to the Iraqi civil war.

No matter which country it is, as long as it is involved in the Iraqi civil war, it should not think of buying weapons from China.

Apparently, the Saudis are among them.