The country that China, the United States, and Russia have all suffered from it is none other than Turkey. And if you want to say which country in the world is the least trustworthy, Turkey must be on the list. The United States and Turkey finally reached an exchange of interests, and the $20 billion F-16 fighter jet order was exchanged for a ticket for Sweden to join NATO, but this also just shows that China did the right thing by not selling Turkish Thunder fighter jets.
Recently, the Turkish parliament approved Sweden's accession to NATO, and US President Joe Biden sent a letter to the leaders of the main committee of the US Congress on the same day, saying that once Turkey completes the ratification process for Sweden's accession to NATO, he will officially notify Congress to approve the sale of F-16 fighters to Turkey.
In other words, although the Biden administration has not officially notified Congress of the plan to sell F-16 fighter jets, after all, it is still before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signs the relevant bill into law. But now, after 20 months, Sweden's accession to NATO is basically a foregone conclusion. And Turkey will also be able to get $20 billion worth of F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits sold by the United States.
(Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan)
Many friends know that at the end of last year, Turkey once released news that it wanted to buy China's Thunder series fighters, and now Turkey and the United States have reached an exchange of interests, it seems that Turkey does not really want to buy the Thunder, but forced the United States to sell F-16 to it. But even if Turkey wants to buy it, we can't sell it, because the country can't trust it too much, and that's a lesson from the past.
Some friends want to ask, what is the relationship between China and Turkey? On the whole, it is quite friendly, with both cooperation and competition, but history and experience continue to tell us that Turkey is a country that is good at jumping sideways repeatedly, and we should not trust it too much. After all, Turkey is a country that can make friends with both China, the United States and Russia at the same time, and it has also suffered losses for China, the United States and Russia.
Let's start with why Turkey wants to buy the F-16. As a member of NATO, Turkey's air force system is completely NATO, and the Turkish Air Force has more than 240 F-16 fighter jets, second only to the United States in terms of the number of fighters in service. However, due to the rapid aging of the F-16 fighter body, the Turkish Air Force has been equipped with F-16 fighters since 1987, and these fighters are still the main force of the country's air force. Therefore, it is already remarkable that the F16 fleet of the Turkish Air Force can be maintained at half of the fleet. Upgrading is an inevitable choice, and it is precisely because of this that the F-16 has become a handle for the United States to control Turkey.
(Biden and Erdogan)
However, Turkey's great point is that it has always been able to find the weakness of a great power, and Turkey has actively penetrated into NATO, becoming a thorn in the head of NATO, often opposing the United States and obtaining its own interests from it. The $20 billion deal includes 40 new F-16s and upgrades to Turkey's existing 80, with an average of $170 million each. To be honest, it is not cheap, and the unit price even exceeds the price of the F-35 stealth fighter. But even so, the United States is still reluctant to sell, because Turkey bought Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, if Turkey uses S-400 and F-16 or F-35 to simulate confrontation, this is not only a threat to the latest American F-16, but also a potential deterrent to F-35. Therefore, the United States will never sell the Turkish F-35, and even the latest F-16 will have to be carefully considered.
In fact, the United States is right to think so, because Turkey got the Russian S-400 and sold Russia backhanded. In 2017, Turkey signed a purchase agreement with Russia for the S-400 long-range anti-aircraft missile system, worth $2.5 billion, and Russia soon began to deliver to Turkey in 2019 in order to win over Turkey, but when the Russian-Ukrainian conflict broke out on a large scale in 2022, Turkey came to Russia with a backstab. In exchange for $13 billion in financial assistance from the United States, Turkey agreed to open the technical secrets of the S-400 to the United States, and it didn't take long for the Ukrainian drone to cooperate with the "Storm Shadow" cruise missile assisted by NATO, and accurately destroyed the Russian S-400 in one fell swoop.
(Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system)
Even Cao Cao couldn't trust Lu Bu, who was a slave with three surnames, and the United States naturally couldn't trust Turkey. If Turkey can deal with Russia in this way, it will naturally be able to repeat the same tricks used by the United States.
Speaking of Turkey's purchase of the S-400, in fact, Turkey also deliberately released its willingness to buy the Hongqi-9 long-range air defense system to China, but fortunately China did not sell it at the beginning, otherwise it would be China that is now betrayed by Turkey.
Moreover, the Ukrainian "Varyag" aircraft carrier wanted to return to China, and Turkey held the Black Sea outlet and did not allow it to pass, and after Greece mediated, Turkey finally agreed, but at the cost of requiring China to pay a deposit of 1 billion US dollars, attracting 2 million tourists to Turkey every year, and selling China's "Defender-1" long-range rocket artillery system to Turkey, as well as transferring a full set of related technologies.
"Defender-1" is not too advanced for China, but it is still a first-class long-range fire system in the world, after Turkey took it back, it improved the relevant technology, replaced it with a German truck chassis and the United States GPS system, and sold it internationally to seize Chinese orders. The sales volume turned out to be better than the original Chinese version.
(Pakistan's Thunder fighter)
All these deeds show that China must not sell Turkey's Thunder series fighters. Today's Thunder has been upgraded to the third generation, capable of launching the "Thunderbolt-15" long-range air-to-air missile, and is equipped with the same helmet as the J-20, and the entire avionics level has reached the top level, which is the only one in the world's light fighters. Once the Thunder enters NATO countries, there is a great risk of technology leakage. The Thunder can be sold to Pakistan, but Turkey is not worthy of our trust.
Although the essence of international relations is the interests of the country, it is also necessary to have principles, bottom lines, and integrity, and not to be without the spirit of contract for the sake of interests. Of course, we avoided technology leakage in several arms sales, not because we were lucky, but because we saw in time which side was more worthy of cooperation. Sometimes making friends is also a science, and in this matter, the Chinese have at least 5,000 years of wisdom.