Uzbekistan confirmed its purchase of Chinese J-10CE jets, becoming the second country after Pakistan to add the fighter to its arsenal, as Beijing makes inroads into high-end defense.
Bangladesh is also mulling a deal to acquire the J-10CE, which is cheaper than the US F-16 and French firm Dassault’s Rafale fighters; a government adviser in Dhaka said Bangladesh “paid attention” when a Pakistani J-10CE shot down an Indian Rafale in 2025.
Uzbekistan is a small market, “but the significance is in the fact that they are buying the jets at all,” the director of the US Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute told the South China Morning Post. “Not Russian ones, not French, or anyone else.”