Nope it is not as simple as that.
1. France brought out a look-down shoot-down radar in the 1980s.
It took China till the 2000s to do the same.
2. Rafale came out with a PESA in 1999 and the Chinese had to wait around 10 years later to do the same.
All those Chinese nationalists and some Pakistani fanboys forget that France does not have to make the T/R modules for the AESA as they have access to them off the shelf. France just does the integration of both the hardware and the software.
So you agree with me then dude?
My original post said that the J-10C was roughly comparable to the Rafale.
While the J-10C may be slightly behind in electronics and missiles, it definitely would be better than Rafale in high-altitude aerodynamic performance. It is quite likely that the J-10C would have the edge in BVR duels with the Rafale.
China was poorer then pakistan in 1980
So its obvious it took china to do everything after 2000s
If we go by this logiv then britain should have the most superior tech even better then usa in 1950s since british were the first to do everything
Or germans should have best tech since they did everything first
But this isnt true
In real world people can catch up
What matters is R&D and manfacturing power house
In reality only two countries have that caapcity
China and USA
Do you seriously think that Rafale is not a good aircraft?
Both India and Indonesia have brough it and nearly 300 have been sold abroad. It is not just Arabs that have brought the plane.
With Western nations you forget that they share technology and so a lot of US technology does make it's way into the hands of other Western nations.
With China they pretty much are on their own and so harder for them.
There are only two other AESA options in medium categery
J10 not availble to anyone
&
F16b70 with complex poltical strings
Typhoon and others dont have a good AESA yet
So rafale has no competition..when it did had competition it lost everytime to americans
China got huge exposure in 1980s & 1990s
Evem till date they had exposure to isreali and russian tech
But this is valid point that they have low collabrative work
But so do french..americans or europeans dont share their stuff among each other this is wrong assumption