By Josh Xiao and Yian Lee

The recent conflict between India and Pakistan is prompting a reassessment of Chinese weapons, challenging long-held perceptions of their inferiority to Western arms and sparking concern in places wary of Beijing.

Pakistan hailed the use of its Chinese J-10Cs to shoot down five Indian fighters, including French-made Rafale aircraft, last week in response to Indian military strikes. Although the reports haven’t been confirmed, and India hasn’t commented, the jet’s maker saw its market capitalization soar by over 55 billion yuan ($7.6 billion), or more than a fourth, by the end of last week.

Hu Xijin, the ex-editor-in-chief of China’s nationalist tabloid Global Times, warned on social media that if Pakistan’s successful strikes were true, Taiwan should feel “even more scared.” Beijing sees the self-ruled democracy as its own, and reserves the right to use military force to bring it under control.

Taiwan closely watched the clash between Pakistan and India, according to Shu Hsiao-Huang, an associate research fellow at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research, a government-funded military think tank based in Taipei.

“We may need to reassess the PLA’s air combat capabilities, which may be approaching — or even surpassing — the level of US air power deployments in East Asia,” Shu said, adding Washington might want to consider selling more advanced systems to Taiwan.

While President Xi Jinping has been trying to modernize the world’s biggest military by the number of active personnel, the People’s Liberation Army has been mired in scandals. That had raised questions about the combat-readiness of its powerful and secretive Rocket........

© The Frontier Post