Iran has signed a deal with China to buy two squadrons of J-10 fighter planes that are based on Israeli technology, the Russian news agency Novosti reported yesterday.

The 24 aircraft are based on technology and components provided to China by Israel following the cancellation of the Lavi project in the mid-1980s. The engines of the J-10 are Russian-made.

The total cost of the planes is estimated at $1 billion, and deliveries are expected between 2008 and 2010.

The sale of the J-10 to Iran would constitute a betrayal of Israel’s extensive aid to China’s military modernization efforts during the 1980s and 1990s. Originally encouraged by the Carter Administration in the late 1970s, in the effort to encourage China’s strategic tilt toward the West and against the Soviet Union, Israel sold China a wide range of army, electronic, naval and aerospace technology. However, after the June 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, when the U.S. and Europe placed arms embargoes on China, Israel refused to follow suit. Many Israeli officials supported continued military technical sales to China not just to make profits necessary to fund future military products, but also because they felt that such sales would persuade China not to sell advanced weapons to Israel’s enemies. The sales, which continued even as the United States objected, probably also represented an Israeli effort to develop her own independent relationship with China, that could begin to free her from dependence on the United States.

At the time of Tiananmen Israel was likely near the height of its involvement in the Chengdu J-10 fighter program. Israel had agreed to sell China fighter aircraft technology from its Lavi (Young Lion) indigenous fighter program, which was aided and subsidized by the U.S.(40 to 90 percent of its $1.5 billion development cost), until Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger became convinced the Lavi would pose unneeded competition to U.S. fighters. The J-10’s anhedral wing and its empennage reflect the Lavi’s design influence while other sources note that Israel provided technology to assist China’s development of “fly-by-wire” or computer control technology to enable greater stability and maneuverability. In 2005 a high Russian official told the author that during his visit to Chengdu’s J-10 development building in the early 1990s he saw wall posters written in Hebrew.

Russian assistance also made a substantial contribution to the J-10’s eventual success, to include sale of a specific variant of the Saturn AL-31 high-power turbofan engine, design assistance to accommodate the engine in the J-10 airframe, plus assistance with the J-10’s radar.

In addition, Israel sold China co-production rights for its Python-3 short-range air-to-air missile in the 1982, with the Chinese designator PL-8. China promptly copied it as the PL-9, with different fins, and later added a helmet sighting capability. U.S. sources have expressed to the author concern that Israel may have sold the more deadly hyper-maneuverable 4th generation Python-4 to China. At the 2002 Zhuhai Airshow China’s AVIC-1 consortium featured a promotional video which gave a very brief glimpse of an AAM with characteristics very similar to the Python-4. Israeli industry reps at that show would not comment on that missile’s similarity to the Python-4. However, Louyang officials have told the author and others that they are working on an advanced short-range AAM.

China’s early 1990s assistance to Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs likely mean that Tehran never took seriously Israel’s plan to separate her from her Chinese ally. China’s demand for Iran’s oil plus its desire to force Iran’s Islamic radical leadership to ignore the plight of China’s Muslims sealed its decision to support Iran’s Mullah government. Israel and the United States now face an Iranian-Chinese alliance having a clear military character. China now appears prepared to use Israeli technology to help Iran defend its nuclear weapons program aimed at Israel and the United States.