They are worried about the Chinese, because they are 'sourcing' their comm equipment from the Chinese, their network backend systems include systems from the Chinese. This makes them open to low-level software centric attacks from the Chinese. This is 'not' about Chinese hardware.
Let's get something straight here. When I start going into technicalities, people start getting annoyed. If I use even slightly strong language to refute somebody's claims, I am called impolite. You can't have a technical discussion without refuting false claims. If you promise to not take anything personally, I can indulge you.
Chinese hardware is everywhere today. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with SMIC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_Manufacturing_International_Corporation
The page lists Qualcomm (wifi, networking), Texas Instruments (custom processors and microcontrollers), and Braodcom (networking, fiber optics, wifi, storage systems etc.) as customers.
India isn't just concerned about low level software, and for good reason.
Almost all modern electronic systems use modular, off the shelf components, to allow easy upgrades. No one spends time developing custom chips for them, anymore - unless we are talking about strategic systems, with decades of shelf life. And any of these companies can have Indian-origin CEOs, that does not mean they are capable of compromising upon US national interests by sharing zero-day vulnerabilities with a foreign government, unless they plan on spending the rest of their lives in jail.
First of all, it is incorrect to say 'no one spends time developing custom chips for them'. It reflects a complete lack of understanding of the computer hardware industry. There are a range of processing solutions available to businesses: FPGA/CPLD, microcontollers, ASIC, standardized microprocessors, and finally customized microprocessors. The decision to utilize one or more of these technologies is based on a range of factors including cost, availability, and desired performance.
Texas Instruments is an example of an ASIC manufacturer. It is easy to think of an application for which no chip is currently available that satisfies your requirements. One of the most frequent uses today would be to encode a custom machine learning algorithm. The ASIC would be needed to optimize the data paths.
And manufacturers such as Apple use customized processors to gain the cost/performance/power advantage over competitors.
You seem to have no idea what kind of power a CEO holds over an organization, especially if the board has a lot of trust in him. You seem to have no idea of the power of 'encouragement'. Here is a a real life anecdote for you. A Pakistani-American entrepreneur bid for a project in America. He tells me his bid was the lowest cost, and lowest time. But the bid went to an Indian. When he called the company, he was told that although he had the lower cost and lower time, and the Indian gave a higher cost and asked for longer time to complete the project, his cost per unit time was lower! That Pakistani entrepreneur holds a total grudge against manipulative Indians. You seem to have absolutely no clue what kind of manipulative connivers they really are.
Pray explain to me, why would they sacrifice their strategic-level trove of vulnerabilities against Pakistan? They developed stuxnet and used that against Iranians to achieve 'strategic' objectives of disallowing them access to nuclear weapons. We are long past the threshold. You expect US to 'want' a Pak-India nuclear exchange, while it's trying hard to 'use' India to stop China's progress? How does this strategic calculus work? We pretty much got the AMRAAMS to allow Pakistan increase its conventional threshold, and stave off a nuclear exchange in the region.
India has not intention of engaging in a war with China. Now, what if I were to tell you that the stated aim of America and its allies is to create a de-nuclearized Pakistan broken into 4 sub-states? You will ask me for proof? Here is another real life anecdote for you just from last year. In a private function here in Sydney with formal dress code, an ex-Australian diplomat started bad mouthing Pakistan in front of me. To cut a long story short, here is one particular sentence he uttered: Pakistan is not a natural country. Pakistan is 4 different countries. I have seen this man walking the roads of Sydney, laughing his head off telling people his experiences from the time when he was in Pakistan. You are a joke in front of the world, and I have seen it first hand. The only interest the world has in you is that you have these weapons. Your Prime Minister has stated clearly in America that if Kashmir problem is solved, we have no use for nuclear weapons. This is how you get Pakistan to give up strategic assets. First install traitors as topmost leadership. Let them appoint similar scoundrels everywhere in the country, especially when it comes to strategic initiatives. At the same time cut off the money supply by installing your proxies under the banner of IMF. If you want to remain an ostrich, feel free to keep your head in the ground.
Generally once any of these vulnerabilities are used, everyone around the world upgrades their systems and it becomes useless. It's a one-time use case scenario. And I do not think US-India currently enjoy a relationship, where US would go around sharing their top of the line cyber weapons with them. Even the Israelis did not get access to F-35 source code, instead were allowed to install their own application on top of F-35's operating system to give them the kind of customization they were seeking.
I don't know where to begin even. There are known cases of radars being compromised, yet the world is still begging Western suppliers for their radars. I have shared this link previously as well. More ostrich mentality here. I am not spewing any rhetoric, you just don't want to acknowledge reality.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-hunt-for-the-kill-switch
Last September, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear installation in northeastern Syria. Among the many mysteries still surrounding that strike was the failure of a Syrian radar—supposedly state-of-the-art—to warn the Syrian military of the incoming assault. It wasn’t long before military and technology bloggers concluded that this was an incident of electronic warfare—and not just any kind.
Post after post speculated that the commercial off-the-shelf microprocessors in the Syrian radar might have been purposely fabricated with a hidden “backdoor” inside. By sending a preprogrammed code to those chips, an unknown antagonist had disrupted the chips’ function and temporarily blocked the radar.
That same basic scenario is cropping up more frequently lately, and not just in the Middle East, where conspiracy theories abound. According to a U.S. defense contractor who spoke on condition of anonymity, a “European chip maker” recently built into its microprocessors a kill switch that could be accessed remotely. French defense contractors have used the chips in military equipment, the contractor told IEEE Spectrum. If in the future the equipment fell into hostile hands, “the French wanted a way to disable that circuit,” he said. Spectrum could not confirm this account independently, but spirited discussion about it among researchers and another defense contractor last summer at a military research conference reveals a lot about the fever dreams plaguing the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).
Case in point? US has sold P8I Poseidon to India with degraded SAR (30 m res vs 3 meters on US P8s) radars, a degraded data-link, and degraded computing power vs a US P8. You need to see the world as it exists.
I can keep explaining the intricacies to you, but it'd mean nothing if you counter my points using mere rhetoric which has no roots in reality.
As already shown, you don't have any technical depth. I find it fascinating how people try to butt heads with me all the time, expecting me to give 'logical' answers when their basic facts are completely wrong.
I do not see anything wrong with Pakistan using only a portion of weapons that it possesses against the Indians, we did not fly against the IAF, expecting a second rate IAF to turn up. We always fly in expecting their top of the range equipment and pilots.
They are a life long enemy, with or without Air Force targeting them, they were already attacking and killing our soldiers across LOC, civilians inside Pakistan using TTP and other elements.
Please know that PAF by now has a several years worth of a heads up against IAF, in using ODLs, EW, ECCM, et al. And have several years worth of tactics developed for it. You cannot buy a piece of equipment today and expect to field it at the top of its capability by day after tomorrow.
And we are not waiting on IAF to finally receive Rafales, to prepare our response. Our response is already in the works. Don't fall into the trap of a weapon system vs weapon system debate, like Indians. Else their Bars radar, SP-518 self protection pods and high speed data-links between the MKIs, were more than enough to take care of all Pakistan had to throw. While reality turned out to be entirely otherwise.
We cannot stand on our laurels here. It is good we are preparing for the next misadventure, but it is unpardonable that we are shying away from the leadership crisis we face. You keep avoiding the topic by calling my words rhetoric. It doesn't change the reality on the ground. A mature nation has the ability to look at its failures, discuss them openly, and onboard the lessons learnt. Think about this.
P.S.
I have already explained the kind of EW we employed on the day and it seems from your responses that you are not reading my posts but just arguing for the sake of arguing.
You are not indulging me in any technicalities but just want a rhetoric based discussion. If that's the idea, I do not think I can convince you otherwise. You are more than welcome to stick to your idea of how things work. =)
All you have done is bandy about two terms: SDRs and ODLs. If that's your level of knowledge then you have a false pride. I have given enough technical information to prove my point. If you want to discuss a specific topic, you can create a separate thread. On this thread, we are discussing why PAF did not shoot down more Indian jets, and the reasons for that involve geo-politics.