Iran shouldn’t count on China to boost its air force

 My latest for The Hill:

Iran shouldn’t count on China to boost its air force

by Ahmad Hashemi, opinion contributor - 08/08/25 10:00 AM ET

The 12-day Israeli air campaign in June was a test of technological dominance. It was a quick and massive victory for Israel and for the U.S. The war severely crippled Iran’s military, exposing critical weaknesses in its air defenses and aging air force.

Iran’s fleet of Cold War-era jets was no match for Israeli stealth fighters, allowing Israel to quickly achieve air superiority. This dominance enabled Jerusalem to decimate Iran’s military leadership and destroy key nuclear and military sites.

In response to these vulnerabilities, Tehran is now planning to acquire Chinese J-10C fighter jets to modernize its air force and reassert control over its airspace.

The Iran-Israel war also tested the limits of Iran’s alliance with Russia, which offered little more than diplomatic support to Tehran during the conflict. Despite a recently signed strategic partnership agreement and years of close cooperation, Russia’s support for Iran during this crisis has proven largely rhetorical.

Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the U.S. attacks, describing them as “unjustified.” Putin called for dialogue without offering any military aid, claiming that Israel is almost a Russian-speaking country, much to the dismay of Iran.

Russia’s failure to deliver on a 2023 agreement for Su-35 jets and its wavering commitment to help Iran during the Iran-Israel war have led Iran to openly question Russia’s reliability as an ally.

Consequently, Tehran is now turning to China for advanced military hardware that Russia failed to provide. Iran’s weapons procurement talks with Beijing, therefore, mark a subtle but profound shift away from Moscow’s aerospace orbit, signaling a significant shift in Iran’s strategic partnerships and potentially impacting the fragile strategic balance in the region.

Iran is in high-level discussions with China to acquire up to 40 Chengdu J-10C multirole fighter jets, along with advanced air defense systems.

The J-10C — sometimes called the “Rafale Killer” after its successful engagement against French-made Indian Rafale jets in a 2025 India-Pakistan conflict — could significantly alter the regional balance of power in Iran’s favor to the detriment of Israel and Arab Gulf states.

This acquisition would be a major step in modernizing Iran’s air force, bridging the technological gap with its rivals, and potentially deterring future Israeli strikes.

Such a deal would also solidify China’s growing influence as a defense supplier in the Middle East and deepen its strategic partnership with Iran. Acquiring the J-10C jets could trigger a regional arms race, with other countries seeking to modernize their air forces to counter Iran’s new capabilities.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab Gulf neighbors are concerned about the potential transfer of Chinese jets to Iran, but Israel is worried the most. Israel is closely watching these developments and is concerned that Iran’s acquisition of these advanced jets could deter future Israeli strikes and bolster Iran’s ability to defend its airspace.

Israel seeks to halt the fighter jet deal between China and Iran. A successful deal would also cement China’s position as a major arms provider to Iran, further strengthening their strategic partnership.

Iran views the Chinese J-10C jets as a key to modernizing its almost nonexistent air force and countering Israel’s air superiority. If Iran succeeds in striking a deal, this will mark a clear strategic pivot toward China for military hardware.

Currently, China appears to be the only nation willing to supply Iran with advanced weaponry. However, Beijing is proceeding cautiously due to several factors. Past attempts by Iran to acquire J-10Cs in 2015 were thwarted by a United Nations arms embargo and China’s demand for cash payments over Iran’s proposed oil-and-gas barter.

In addition, China’s reluctance to fully commit to large-scale arms exports to Iran is rooted in its desire to avoid Western backlash and its complex relations with Iran’s regional rivals, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These Gulf states are crucial energy suppliers and trading partners for China.

Furthermore, China prioritizes stabilizing its relationship with Washington to focus on its own technological and economic self-sufficiency, which is a more critical goal than the potential profits from selling advanced weapons to Iran.

Despite this hesitancy regarding advanced weapons sales, China is and will remain a vital ally for Iran through continued oil purchases in violation of international sanctions. More than 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports go to China, providing a crucial financial lifeline to the sanctions-stricken nation.

The arms deal is far from certain. For China, maintaining access to the Gulf’s energy resources and ensuring regional stability outweigh the benefits of supplying Iran with advanced weaponry. If unable to acquire Chinese fighter jets, Iran would be susceptible to recurring Israeli air strikes, hindering its ability to enhance its ballistic, drone, and nuclear capabilities.

The stakes are high for inaction. Washington possesses several leverages against Beijing. The U.S. is a major export market for China and contributes significantly to its GDP growth. America must use this leverage to prevent China’s potential weapons sale to Iran.

Ahmad Hashemi is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Tags: Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran China, Foreign relations of Iran, Iran, Iran-Israeli tensions, Israel, J-10C fighter jets, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Vladimir Puti,n Vladimir Putin

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5440797-iran-china-fighter-jets/

 Middle East Forum 

Podcasts

Ahmad Hashemi on the Imperial Nature of the Islamic Regime of Iran

Historically Iran Included a Significant Number of Minorities

August 4, 2025

Marilyn Stern

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ZGaX-OYCoY?enablejsapi=1

Ahmad Hashemi, freelance analyst and graduate student at the Institute of World Politics, participated in the reform movement in Iran. He spoke to an August 4 Middle East Forum Podcast (video), and the following summarizes his comments:

The Greater Iran concept, or “Iranshahr,” refers to “the imperial nature of Iran.” The expansionist ideology “informs and influences Iran’s behavior and its domestic and foreign policies.” Historically, Iran has included a significant number of minorities. Unlike the collapsed empires that were replaced by nation-states in the twentieth century, Iran survived as a “multi-ethnic empire” due to the Pahlavi regime’s “heavy-handed military presence” in non-Persian ethnic areas that desire autonomy. Today’s Iran is a Persian empire “with a Shiite flavor.” Under the current-day fundamentalist Shiite mullahs, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other “designated terror organizations” continue to “use violence as a means to keep the country integrated superficially.”

The one point of agreement between the Islamists and secular Persians is the Iranshahr ideology, which seeks to expand imperial Iran and revive the Persian Empire.

In the 1940s, attempts at establishing autonomous and independent areas of Iranian territory, such as South Azerbaijan and the Kurdish Republic, failed because of the bipolarity arrangements between the Soviet and American powers during the Cold War. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran did not change the aspirations of the “pro-autonomy, pro-independence” secessionist movements in a divided country seeking equality with Persians. These movements were met with harsh regime suppression that persists today.

As a Shiite majority nation, Iran aimed to unite the non-Persian ethnic groups under the monolithic faith, but with the decline of religiosity, ethno-nationalism is on the rise among both Persians and non-Persians, creating a “serious friction point for a nation.” However, the one point of agreement between the Islamists and secular Persians is the Iranshahr ideology, which seeks to expand imperial Iran and revive the Persian Empire. Within that model, the secular nationalists differ from the Islamists in that the former want Iran to transition “from Islamist tyranny to monarchist tyranny with the Persian identity as the core idea.”

Iran is an “apartheid regime on three fronts.” First, it engages in “gender apartheid” where women are treated as inferior to men. Second, it practices “religious apartheid” where non-Shiites and non-Muslims are treated as second-class citizens. And third, it makes use of “ethnic apartheid,” wherein non-Persian minorities are marginalized “economically, politically, [and] culturally.” The opposition forces of Pahlavi monarchists refuse to acknowledge ongoing discrimination against non-Persian ethnic minorities and support the regime’s suppression of them because the monarchists consider them “a threat to Iran’s national unity and territorial integrity.”

The monarchists pay lip service in English to the idea of promoting “one nation, one flag, one country, one language,” but in Farsi they give tacit approval to the regime’s suppression of ethnic minorities. The monarchists are “opposed to any sort of expression of identity, anything other than Shiite, Persian, and a predominant identity [as] Iranian, Persian, Shiite.” This is “one reason that can explain why the opposition forces have not been able to unite against” the Islamic regime. Now that the 12-day Israel war against Iran is over, the regime has returned to “their DNA—Islamism, hostility towards secularism and towards the West, and towards Israel.”

Israel should extend outreach to the ethnic minorities because the Iranshahr doctrine “encourages coercive ‘Persianization’ of non-Persians in Iran and also territorial expansion via proxy forces abroad.”

As to Israel’s role “as it pertains to Iran today and its imperial ambitions,” the Jewish state’s public diplomacy is focused too heavily on Persian nationalists and Pahlavi monarchists. Rather, it should extend outreach to the ethnic minorities because the Iranshahr doctrine “encourages coercive ‘Persianization’ of non-Persians in Iran and also territorial expansion via proxy forces abroad.” As ethnic minorities are pro-Western, pro-Israel, and pro-Jewish, they are the “solution for future Iran.”

Three steps to end imperial Iran include: (1) empowerment of the ethnic minorities to fight the war with the Iranian regime through “local boots on the ground”; (2) the territorial collapse that would result from ethnic minorities’ taking the fight to the regime; (3) implementation of a no-fly zone in minority regions. The recent Druze model in Syria, where Israeli air support enabled the Druze minority to prevent a potential massacre by the Muslim majority, can be replicated in Iran.

The deterrence of Iran’s continued nuclear proliferation involves employing the multiple tools of U.S. national power: “maximum economic pressure, airstrikes, kinetic and non-kinetic warfare.” Additionally, although the combined soft power of the U.S. and Israel squeezes the regime via “coercive diplomacy, hybrid war, [and] cyber-attacks,” defeating the Persian empire and its Iranshahr ideology “requires a long-term strategy by the U.S., by Israel, by the West. It requires an unwavering commitment to support the militant uprising of oppressed ethnic groups” by funding, training, equipping, and arming non-ethnic Persian groups who “would overwhelm the regime.” These three steps “will be the beginning of the end of the Imperial Persian, or Iranshahr project.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZGaX-OYCoY