New Delhi: It is increasingly unlikely that Pakistan will be able to fly China’s J-35 stealth fighter in this decade. In fact, analysts note that even an early-2030s window is uncertain.
Despite repeated speculation since early 2024 by Pakistani military officials, which gained more traction after Operation Sindoor, the aircraft remains limited to prototypes, test flights and carrier trials in China, and no publicly confirmed contract exists with Islamabad.
At best, analysts say, the J-35 may enter Chinese frontline service later this decade—some estimates point to the late 2020s—with an export variant conceivable only afterwards. That pushes any potential delivery to Pakistan into the 2030s, if it happens at all.
The chatter of Pakistan acquiring the aircraft began in January 2024 when Pakistan’s air chief, Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar, said the “foundation had been laid” for acquiring the FC-31, also known as the J-35.
By December of that year, local reports went further, suggesting deliveries could begin within months. In June 2025, international de-fence outlets quoted unnamed Pakistani officials claiming China had offered up to 40 jets.
Yet no agreement ever surfaced, Beijing stayed quiet, and later Defence Minister Khawaja Asif publicly dismissed the talk as media speculation.
The contrast with other China-Pakistan defence deals is stark, observers told The Sunday Guardian: when real transfers take place, whether J-10C fighters, VT-4 tanks or Type 054 frigates, they are accompanied by contracts, shipyard photos and induction ceremonies. None of that has happened with the J-35.
Part of the explanation lies in the aircraft’s own status. The J-35 is billed as a fifth-generation stealth platform, with advanced avionics and internal weapons bays, but it remains under development. Its engine program is still maturing, carrier integration work continues, and the jet has only recently moved towards limited production rather than full squadron service. China has a track record of exporting only after a weapon has been proven in its own service, which sets the earliest realistic export window several years into the future.
However, the deeper and more significant reason is political.
For Beijing, the J-35 is not just another fighter but a sensitive technology package. Pakistan may be China’s closest security partner, but it has never fully severed its covert links with Washington. These dimensions have evolved rapidly in the last few years, and at a more rapid pace this year.
In the past, the United States has supplied Islamabad with F-16s, provided training and sustained a pattern of intelligence cooperation, much of which is not known to the public at large. Under the Trump administration, those military-to-military channels revived, both openly in equipment sustainment and quietly in counter-terrorism coordination—something which has not gone unnoticed in Beijing.
Exporting stealth aircraft into such an environment would risk exposing some of China’s most guarded designs to Washington.
That caution explains why the J-20, the true jewel of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, has never been offered abroad, and why even the “export-ready” J-35 remains out of reach for Pakistan. For now, the talk of stealth fighters serves mainly as signalling: a reminder to India that Rawalpindi and Beijing can hint at fifth-generation parity when it suits them. But two years after the first public mention, the absence of a deal makes the conclusion hard to escape. Pakistan will not be flying J-35s this decade, and even in the 2030s the prospect remains doubtful.
The 2024 chatter may have been politically useful at the moment, but it is unlikely to mature into deliveries any time soon.
Observers said that Beijing also knows that such a transfer would reverberate well beyond Islamabad. Delivering a stealth fighter to Pakistan would almost certainly harden New Delhi’s stance, accelerate Indian purchases of Russian, US and European systems, and deepen India’s alignment with the West—something Beijing would like to avoid.
