J-10 multirole fighter

The Chengdu J-10 jet is the result of a 40-year Chinese effort to develop a high-performance fighter. The aircraft is believed by many to have benefited from technology originally developed for the Israeli Lavi (Lion Cub), which was cancelled under U.S. pressure in the late 1980s. This assistance was augmented by Russian input in the 1990s.

Much of the information available in open sources is necessarily speculative. Nevertheless, the Boston Globe reported on April 5, 2005, that...