Uzbekistan has confirmed that it operates Chinese J-10CE fighter jets — turning months of speculation into a significant development for Central Asia’s defense market.
The purchase does more than modernize Tashkent’s aging combat fleet. It marks China’s entry into one of the most consequential arenas of military procurement in a region long dependent on Soviet and Russian aircraft.
Uzbekistan is now the second confirmed foreign operator of the J-10CE, after Pakistan. At least six aircraft appeared in official footage released around the country’s Independence Day celebrations — the clearest evidence yet of the purchase.
The significance lies elsewhere. Uzbekistan’s combat aviation has long been built around Soviet-designed MiG-29s, Su-27s and Su-25s, and the J-10CE brings a new supplier, weapons ecosystem, maintenance infrastructure and training relationship into a system with deep Soviet and Russian roots.
The question is no longer whether China can sell sophisticated weapons abroad. It’s whether Beijing can establish itself as a credible alternative supplier of advanced combat aircraft.
Export breakthrough
Pakistan gave the J-10CE its first export breakthrough, beginning deliveries in 2022 and integrating the fighter into an air force that already operates substantial Chinese-origin equipment.
Uzbekistan presents a different test: entry into a fighter market shaped for decades by Soviet and Russian platforms.
Russia has traditionally held structural advantages in Central Asia’s fighter market: Soviet-era inventories created long-term reliance on Russian spare parts, maintenance, training and compatible weapons. But that dependence is becoming less automatic.
According to SIPRI, Russian exports of major arms fell sharply between 2016-20 and 2021-25, as the war in Ukraine strained Russia’s defense industry and pushed some traditional customers to diversify suppliers.
This doesn’t mean Russia is disappearing from Central Asia’s defense market. Russian equipment remains deeply embedded in regional militaries, and Moscow retains extensive institutional, training and security ties. What’s changing is the assumption that Russia will automatically supply the next generation of major weapons.
China is well positioned to capitalize on that opening. Uzbekistan already operates Chinese air-defense systems and drones; the J-10CE extends that relationship into frontline combat aviation.
The fighter deal is also unfolding against a broader expansion of Chinese economic influence. China has emerged as Uzbekistan’s largest trading partner, and Chinese investment and joint ventures have expanded rapidly. The J-10CE, then, is not an isolated arms transaction — it adds a high-end military dimension to an increasingly important economic relationship.
Russia’s wartime constraints may have widened the opening, but Beijing spent years building the economic and defense relationships needed to walk through it.
The Pakistan factor
The J-10CE is no longer being marketed on specifications and price alone.
Pakistan’s operation of the aircraft has let potential buyers assess the export version in active service, and its reported performance during the May 2025 India-Pakistan clash appears to have sharpened international attention on the fighter.
Claims about individual aircraft losses remain politically contested and should be treated with caution. But the clash nevertheless gave Chinese combat aviation something valuable in international arms markets: operational visibility.
Fighter procurement involves more than buying an airframe. Governments weigh sensors, missiles, electronic-warfare capabilities, maintenance requirements, and whether a supplier can sustain the system for decades.
Pakistan therefore gives Beijing an operational reference point when marketing the J-10CE, and Uzbekistan’s decision suggests that reference point may be gaining value.
The next test could come outside Central Asia — and it would matter, because it could turn what now looks like a two-country export story into evidence of a wider Asian market for the aircraft.
Bangladesh is moving toward acquiring J-10CE fighters as part of a broader modernization effort. Dhaka already operates considerable Chinese-origin military equipment, so the transition would be less dramatic than in Uzbekistan.
Its importance lies elsewhere. If the J-10CE gains customers in Pakistan, a former Soviet Central Asian republic, and Bangladesh, Beijing could show that its advanced combat aircraft compete across very different defense markets — not just among China’s closest strategic partners.
That could add competitive pressure on Russian manufacturers in markets where MiG and Sukhoi aircraft have traditionally been the principal non-Western fighter option.
Crowded arms market
China is unlikely to simply replace Russia across Central Asia. The emerging pattern is diversification, not substitution: Turkey has expanded its defense footprint, particularly through drones; other suppliers are finding openings too; and Russia retains major structural advantages built up over decades of military integration.
Uzbekistan’s J-10CEs nevertheless make the changing market unusually visible. China has already supplied Central Asian states with drones, air-defense systems, armored vehicles and other military equipment. Selling an advanced fighter to an air force built around Soviet aircraft is a qualitatively different step.
For Uzbekistan, diversification offers greater choice as it modernizes its armed forces. For Russia, it means competing in a market where historical dominance can no longer guarantee future orders.
For China, the significance extends beyond a handful of fighter sales. Pakistan gave the J-10CE its first export customer and its operational reference point. Uzbekistan now gives Beijing something potentially more consequential: evidence that Chinese frontline combat aviation can break into a former Soviet defense market.
If Bangladesh follows, the J-10CE could look less like a platform built around one strategic partnership and more like a fighter with a genuinely global export market.
Saima Afzal is a researcher specializing in South Asian security and regional geopolitics across the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific. She is a research scholar at Justus Liebig University in Germany.
