There has been a lot of buzz lately about the new fighter jets being built and tested by the Russians, and China has also recently given the world another glimpse of their latest fighter jets at a show in Tianjin.

Showing off the J-10, the first jet completely built and designed by China with an impressive aerial show, they also used this opportunity to demonstrate their increased skill as a military power. While so far Pakistan is the only confirmed country to have purchased these jets, China is hoping that there will be a considerable market for this new aircraft and put on the display in hopes of gaining new sales.

The technology of the J-10 is said to be rather impressive, but it looks as though it won’t rival the technology we are seeing in the F-35’s. Since the 90’s China has been revamping their military, focusing more on creating an offensive force, rather than purely defensive, and this includes better trained fighter pilots and better jets.

The show was only the second time that international media have ever been allowed on a Chinese military base and while they put on an impressive demonstration of both the capabilities of the J-10s and their fighter pilots, there is still a lot of work that is needed to compete with the technology we are seeing from other nations, according to reports.

The J-10 has been in the air for a few years now, but this appears to be the first aggressive move on China’s part to find an international market for the J-10. There have been rumors that Iran is looking to purchase the J-10s, as well as interest expressed by Thailand. There is also talk about the next generation Chinese fighter jets, the J-11 which are said to be in development and will be ready by 2017, years before it was initially thought that China could produce a new jet.

While it appears that the J-10 is no real match for our new F-35s it is still important to keep an eye out for who will be buying these jets and what the technology for the even newer J-11’s will look like. There should be a number of stories about these rumored purchases over the next little while so I’ll try and keep you all posted.