Locked In on Rafales, Indonesia Doubles Down on China's J-10CE to Counter Australia's F-35A

Alan Warnes — publisher of the international military magazine Air Forces Monthly — dropped a significant revelation on social media. Indonesian Air Force officials confirmed to him that Indonesia has finalized plans to procure the J-10CE fighter jet. The order has doubled, from the originally planned 12 aircraft to 24. Indonesia will simultaneously introduce the PL-15E air-to-air missile, effectively acquiring the same fully configured J-10CE variant currently in service with the Pakistan Air Force.

Pakistan already flies the fully loaded J-10CE. Indonesia is buying the exact same jet.

Indonesia's interest in the J-10CE did not come out of nowhere. In October 2025, Indonesian Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin told media that Indonesia would soon purchase fighter jets from China as part of its military modernization program — adding that "Chinese fighter jets will fly over Jakarta." He stopped short of naming a specific model. Based on Jakarta's bidding process, observers concluded that only the J-10CE could realistically compete against Boeing's F-15EX, which was also in the running.

When Sjamsoeddin made those remarks, a critical backdrop was already in play. Indonesia's Defense Ministry had launched a review of its Rafale F4 order — and rumors circulated that Jakarta might cancel the deal and pivot to the J-10CE. The review was triggered on May 14, 2025, just one week after the May 7 air combat encounter in which Pakistan Air Force J-10CE fighters defeated India's Rafale F3R jets. That outcome left Jakarta in an uncomfortable position. The Rafale — billed as "Europe's top fighter" — had underperformed in actual combat, sparking domestic skepticism and speculation about an abrupt change of course.

The J-10CE's stellar air combat record forced Jakarta to completely rethink its fighter procurement.

The review ended quietly, without a public announcement. One year later, on May 18, 2026, France's Dassault Aviation delivered the first batch of six Rafale F4 jets to the Indonesian military — effectively confirming the verdict. Some observers assumed the J-10CE had lost out, reasoning that Jakarta would never simultaneously buy Rafales and Chinese fighters. The reality is Jakarta has been quietly running a two-track procurement strategy all along.

The J-10CE's performance aligns squarely with Indonesia's urgent need to modernize its air force. The fact that J-10CEs downed several Rafales does not make the French jets worthless — for Indonesia, more advanced fighters simply means more combat capability. Operating both the J-10CE and the Rafale offers real tactical upside: the two types can complement each other externally and enable adversarial training internally to sharpen combat readiness. More importantly, if the Rafale's air combat performance continues to fall short, the J-10CE can underpin overall Indonesian air power as a fallback.

Indonesia's air force maintains two primary hypothetical adversaries: Singapore — which controls the Strait of Malacca — and Australia to the south. Australia is the main strategic concern, driven by disputes over maritime resource boundaries. The Royal Australian Air Force operates 72 F-35A fighters that outperform Indonesia's current fleet of F-16s, Su-27s, and Su-30s.

Indonesia's Rafale purchase was designed precisely to counter Australia's F-35A. France had marketed the jet as Europe's most advanced "4.5-generation" fighter, citing exercise scenarios in which the Rafale reportedly "shot down" the F-22 and claimed near fifth-generation capabilities. Indonesia maintains good relations with the United States but is not a formal ally and lacks access to the F-35A. That made the Rafale a comparatively viable option. In 2022, the two countries signed an $8.1 billion deal — roughly HK$63.2 billion — for 42 Rafale F4 jets.

Many countries accepted France's promotional claims at face value — until May 7, 2025. That night, Pakistan Air Force J-10CEs reportedly shot down three Rafales. Equipped with advanced onboard radar and PL-15E missiles, the J-10CE gave its opponents virtually no chance to respond. Reported details paint a one-sided engagement: the J-10CE detected Rafales at approximately 200 km using its own radar, the PL-15E achieved a record engagement distance of 189 km, and the Rafale's radar warning system never triggered an alert.

Armed with powerful radar and PL-15E long-range missiles, the J-10CE strikes before the enemy can react.

That engagement exposed three concrete advantages the J-10CE holds over the Rafale. First, its onboard radar is powerful enough to deliver strong air combat performance even without extensive network support — a decisive edge for smaller air forces. Second, its long-range missiles allow the J-10CE to fully exploit detection range, seize the initiative, and deny opponents the time or space to retaliate. Third, the radar features low probability of intercept capabilities, rendering even the Rafale's advanced European warning systems largely ineffective.

Before May 7, 2025, Indonesia had almost no viable path to acquiring a fighter that combined all three qualities. With the Rafale's claimed superiority now shattered, Jakarta naturally wants the J-10CE to fill the gap — and counter Australia's F-35As.

Make no mistake: all of this rests on the assumption that Indonesia keeps buying Rafales. Jakarta financed the 42-jet order through loans from Paris. Canceling the contract would trigger massive penalty payments and devastating damage to Indonesia's international credit standing. This reflects a deliberate French export model. Paris knows that wealthy nations go to Washington. Its target market is financially constrained developing countries — Egypt, Serbia, and others — and it hooks them with high-percentage financing guarantees and low-interest loans, collecting profits over the long repayment window.

France uses massive loans to sell Rafales to developing nations—hooking buyers who cannot afford to walk away.

Egypt's deal illustrates how the model works. Egypt received loans covering up to 85% of its Rafale contract value, structured over 10 years. On a €4 billion deal — approximately HK$33.6 billion — Egypt needed only €600 million in upfront cash. Indonesia adopted the same structure: 15% down payment, 85% financed through commercial loans, on an $8.1 billion contract — roughly HK$63.2 billion. Given Indonesia's annual defense budget of only $11.6 billion — around HK$90.5 billion — walking away from the agreement is simply not financially feasible.

Indonesia's potential 24-jet J-10CE purchase also offers China a clear lesson. When Beijing exported the J-10CE to Pakistan, it provided low-interest loans worth RMB 10.14 billion — approximately HK$11 billion — but that fell short of France's mature, systematic financing model for arms exports. A strong product is only the first step. Creating effective mechanisms for customers to pay is equally critical. Indonesia's order may be precisely the opportunity China needs to build that capability.

The Art of Stopping War

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A single photo viral on social media, just turned a rumor into fact. The image captures a J-35, afterburners blazing, tail nozzle spitting a long tongue of flame. At the runway's end, the deck kicks up sharply. That's the unmistakable profile of a ski-jump carrier. Is it the Liaoning or the Shandong? The photo alone can't tell us.

Afterburners blazing, a J-35 roars toward a ski-jump deck under cover of darkness.

But look closer. A nighttime launch. An empty sea. A ski-jump deck. Those details scream one thing: this stealth fighter is already combat-deployed. You don't pick a dark night for a test flight.

For a long time, skeptics doubted the J-35 could ever fly from a ski-jump deck. The problem? Catapult launches and ski-jump takeoffs punish an airframe in completely different ways. An electromagnetic catapult yanks the aircraft forward along its spine. That brutal tug demands a beefed-up landing gear and a reinforced fuselage. The J-35 has already proven it can handle that. It's been flung off the Fujian's catapults repeatedly. So that box is checked.

But a ski-jump takeoff hits differently. The shock doesn't run lengthwise. It slams along the X-axis. As the deck ramps upward, the jet gets a violent nose-up jolt right at the point of departure. Surviving a catapult shot doesn't guarantee you can handle a ski-jump. Basic aeronautical engineering.

Now, you might ask: what about landing? A J-35 slamming onto the deck hits harder and faster than any takeoff. Isn't that a tougher test than the X-axis jolt? Fair point. But takeoff and landing loads are different beasts. Each scenario demands its own round of testing, one by one.

And passing tests is just step one. It doesn't mean the jet is ready to move in. The J-35 is a fifth-generation stealth fighter. Its skin coatings and onboard systems need a whole different level of care compared to the old J-15. The carrier's hangar and maintenance gear must be ripped out and rebuilt. Only after those modifications are done, and the new maintenance routines are proven, can the fighter truly call the ship home.

All three Chinese carriers are now ready to launch the stealthy J-35.

So where do things stand? All three of China's carriers can now field the J-35. The ski-jump deck is no longer a barrier. The only bottleneck is the hangar and support system overhaul. For the Dalian Shipyard, that's not a technical headache. The real question is whether the navy has the appetite to do it.

The US Navy's Awkward Reality

Now turn that same question on the US Navy. The picture gets awkward fast. The USS Gerald R. Ford has long insisted it cannot carry the F-35C stealth fighter. The ship was simply not designed for it.

The gap in stealth fighter deployment? It's widening, and not in the US Navy's favor.

The Navy's earlier explanation: the Ford's design was frozen before the F-35C entered service. You can't build custom maintenance facilities for a jet that doesn't exist yet. That sounds reasonable. But it falls apart under scrutiny.

First, the Ford is the US Navy's next-generation flagship carrier. Its designer, Newport News Shipbuilding, handled everything: detailed 3D engineering, block construction, final assembly, mooring trials. All of it.

And yet, this is a shipyard with a century of experience. It failed to make any forward-looking provisions for the next-generation carrier aircraft. Not even a reserved maintenance workshop. That is hard to swallow.

Second, it's not that US carriers can't handle the F-35C. It's that the Ford can't. The USS Carl Vinson, commissioned in the 1980s, operates the jet just fine. The Ford, built in the 2010s, cannot. That contrast is striking.

Whether the Ford's electromagnetic catapult system is incompatible with the F-35C is a separate question.  On stealth fighter deployment, the gap between the Chinese and US navies is widening. The J-35 is now the world's first stealth fifth-generation fighter to complete an electromagnetic catapult launch. And every Chinese carrier can handle it.

Meanwhile, the US Navy still relies on the F/A-18E/F as its workhorse. That jet's basic design goes back to the 1970s. In any future encounter at sea, it would be a case of China using stealth fighters to bully older-generation jets.

More than just carriers and jets

China's stealth aviation push is systematic. The entire fleet's combat capability is on the same trajectory. Compatibility for catapult-equipped carriers solved. The needs of ski-jump carriers did not go ignored.  All three carrier lines are advancing in parallel.

On the US side, the Ford has stumbled repeatedly on new systems: electromagnetic catapults, advanced arresting gear. It still hasn't hit its original combat capability targets. The plan to deploy stealth fighters has been delayed again and again.

The contrast answers a clear question: which navy adapts better to a changing battlefield? China's or America's?

One Navy Adapts, the Other Stumbles

Talk of a changing battlefield? It really tests one thing: how a navy uses its carrier aircraft. What a carrier flies dictates how far and how stealthily it can project power.

One navy adapts. The other stumbles. It's clear who's quicker on their feet.

Now put a J-35 on a ski-jump carrier. You get a leap in stealth strike capability. A platform once written off as fit only for conventional fighters suddenly joins the fifth-generation package.

For a navy operating three carriers built along different technical paths, a single stealth fighter model changes everything. Training, maintenance, and talent pipelines merge into one. The combat payoff is not just additive. It is multiplicative.

Now look at the United States. The Ford's journey from launch to commissioning was tortuous. And integrating a stealth fighter? That adds another layer of uncertainty. A platform purpose-built for a next-generation carrier is proving slow to actually host the next generation of aircraft. That gap is no accident. It reflects real shortcomings in design and construction.

The Chinese Navy's method: get the platform working step by step, then tailor maintenance to the aircraft's quirks. The US Navy's method: burn time in endless integration struggles between systems and the platform. Which path is more pragmatic? Time has already handed down a partial verdict.

The J-35 on a ski-jump deck: just one milestone in China's stealth transformation.

Putting J-35 on a ski-jump carrier is just the beginning of China's drive toward a fully stealth navy. The real story is the diffusion of stealth aviation power: from individual platforms to the entire system. Once Liaoning, Shandong, and Fujian all fly the same stealth fighter, China's navy will have far more options for projecting power on the high seas.

For the US military, the problem is stark: how to get the Ford to quickly accommodate the F-35C. That remains a hard problem for its navy. One step forward, one step behind. That neatly captures the different stages these two navies now occupy.