In recent years, there has been an interesting phenomenon in China's display of weapons for export, that is, the performance of some major brands is a little more advanced than the self-used version. Take the J-10CE as an example, this is a fourth-generation semi-medium fighter exported to the Pakistan Air Force, and its prototype is the J-10C fighter used by the People's Liberation Army itself. Compared with the self-use version, the J-10CE has been upgraded in the airborne avionics, and the data link system has been modified, changing from the national standard to the NATO general standard, so that the J-10CE can achieve better compatibility with NATO fighters and ammunition in the Pakistan Air Force. In addition to the J-10CE, the Rainbow series of large Chada UAVs exported to Saudi Arabia are also better than other models used by the country, which once made people think that China has no "bottom line" for exporting weapons to foreign countries.
In fact, not only China, but also the United States will deliberately strengthen its main brand when exporting weapons to the outside world. For example, the F-15SA fighter sold to Saudi Arabia has stronger performance than the F-15C of its own air force. The F-16 Block 70/72 exported to the outside world is much better than the F-16CD for domestic use. The reason for this phenomenon is that in recent years, many large-scale conflicts have broken out in some areas, and the demand for the use of advanced technology and equipment has increased substantially. If the performance of the main weapon in a local conflict is not good, it will directly affect the subsequent export of this type of weapon. For this reason, mainstream military trade countries will deliberately strengthen their main brands when exporting their main brands. However, China has also left a hand in foreign arms sales, that is, it will not open the source code of the system to the outside world, and even if advanced equipment is analyzed, the core secrets will not be leaked.
The importance of the weapon's source code is self-evident, and if it is broken and rewritten, the entire system is not confidential. Countries that break the source code can not only copy it backwards, but even upgrade it flexibly. When the Su-27 and Su-30 fighters first came to China, we have always been thoroughly aware of them, but our own industrial capacity and scientific research strength are insufficient, and this process consumes a lot of time. After mastering the source code of the system, we took the initiative to launch the domestic version of the J-11B fighter, and derived the J-16 fighter with more powerful performance on the basis of the J-11B fighter. In the case of foreign arms sales, the systems we give are all internationally accepted data sockets, and their standards are the same, and the version update can be completed by the buyers themselves. But we still have reservations about the source code of the central computer. Taking the J-10CE as an example, the on-board equipment is not the same as the domestic version, but the general version that we export to the outside world, even if the source code is broken, there will be no conflict with the data of our own version.
For this reason, we are very confident in the main brand. And what can be exported to the outside world must not be the most powerful existence in the country. Take the J-10CE and FC-31 as examples, and above them is the J-20. On top of the Rainbow series of UAVs is a combination of the Wuzhi-8 and long-range hypersonic missiles. However, unlike the United States and Russia, the types of weapons we export to foreign countries are more abundant than in the past, and their reliability has also been verified on the battlefield. It is reported that at the "Global Defense Exhibition" held in Saudi Arabia, Chinese companies have won a number of large orders.