Bangladesh, Myanmar, Egypt, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe are among the countries that have shown interest in buying the JF-17. At the Karachi Military Exhibition later this month, China and Pakistan are expected to make formal presentations on the JF-17.

Russia is aware the sale of engines to Pak JF-17s is bound to anger India. At the same time Moscow knows refusal to sell the engines to Pakistan will upset China. Beijing is now Moscow’s strategic partner, and trade and defence cooperation between the two countries has rapidly grown in recent years.

Reports from Moscow suggest China has been pressing Russia for an early decision on the sale of RD-93 engines. Though Russian officials insist no decision has been made on military cooperation with Pakistan, they have not denied China’s request on RD-93 re-export is under active consideration.

China’s own political prestige is at stake in ensuring the Russian sale of engines to JF-17, which has emerged as a symbol of the “all weather friendship” between Beijing and Islamabad.

In his Independence Day speech on August 14, President Pervez Musharraf announced the JF-17s would be flying in Pakistani skies by March 2007. Earlier, Musharraf visited the JF-17 assembly line in China and praised the project as a “leap forward” in Sino-Pak military cooperation.

Jointly developed by the China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industries Corporation and Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, the JF-17 was conceived as a light fighter, with advanced technologies, the cost of developing it split between the two countries.

American aerospace companies were expected to join in the project. But military sanctions against China following the Tiananmen incidents in 1989, forced Beijing and Islamabad to turn elsewhere. Russian design bureaus participated in the development of the JF-17 airframe.