Lu Jiadong and Musharraf can discuss the cooperation plan seamlessly, but they have no final decision-making power. What's more, it also involves technical cooperation, personnel training, financial transactions, equipment assistance, etc., which have long exceeded the scope of their power and have risen to the top national level. Fortunately, both of them are very familiar with their own country situation.

So early the next morning, Musharraf and Lu Jiadong returned to Islamabad on a special plane. As soon as he got off the plane, he hurriedly took this cooperation plan to report and explain with the cooperation plan. The president personally presided over the Pakistan National Security Conference, convening all the main generals of the army, diplomatic and industrial officials to listen to and discuss the plan proposed by Musharraf to jointly develop a new tank with China.

However, the meeting was at a deadlock at the beginning. Many military generals and industrial officials questioned the feasibility of this plan. The most important thing is to focus on China's technical ability to develop new tanks. You must know that the basis of tanks is a country's automobile industry. Any tank research and development power is a major automobile manufacturing power, the United States, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

But in China, in today's China, except for two-wheeled bicycles, four-wheeled cars have never been qualified, so cars on the streets are even rarer. How can a country that cannot even make ordinary cars? What's more, the tanks produced in China are either Type 59 or Type 62 improved on its basis.

All are old-fashioned tanks with backward performance, so many people are not optimistic about China's ability to develop breakthrough new tanks. Therefore, some senior Pakistani officials believe that they should implement external procurement in accordance with the previous plan, and at most, Chinese new tanks are included in the bidding list as alternatives.

Musharraf knew the actual situation of China's weak automobile industry and the performance of tanks and armored vehicles. With this fact alone, even if Lu Jiadong is very eloquent and talks about the new tanks, Musharraf just smiled slightly and was unmoved. The most important reason why he and Lu Jiadong could promote this cooperation plan together is the content of the joint development and cooperative factory establishment.

If Musharraf was just as a senior official from various departments attending the meeting, he would only be at peace and be as good as he would have been a few years ago, so he would have put it in his pocket and live a peaceful life in the position of Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, he would have rejected Lu Jiadong's proposal without hesitation. But now it is different. Musharraf has a greater goal. He wants to go into politics, he wants to become the president of Pakistan, and he wants to lead this country to dominate South Asia.

Since we have such a lofty goal, our style of conduct must not only look at a small place in front of us like before, but we must put it in the long run and gain reputation and public opinion. Now Pakistan is still an agricultural country with an extremely weak industrial foundation. If we can introduce maintenance workshops or even assemble production lines through the opportunity of jointly developing new tanks with China, we will have a qualitative leap in Pakistan's industrial level.

By then, Pakistan will not only be among the few advanced countries in the world that can develop and produce tanks, but the industrial foundation it relies on can also ensure the self-sufficiency of the army. It will not have to be broken in wartime. It can also promote other related industries through large-scale industrial production while enhancing the country's strength, thereby creating tens of thousands of jobs and promoting the development of people's livelihood!

Once these prestigious, meritorious, supportive and public opinion projects are completed, Musharraf, as an active advocate, has paved a prosperous road for progress from then on. Because of this, Musharraf spared no effort to argue at the meeting and acted like a verbal battle against the scholars.

Of course, Musharraf was not stupid enough to discuss the technical issues of Chinese tanks, but focused on the introduction of relevant technologies and industrial production lines and their role in promoting Pakistan's future development. At this point, neither the United States nor Germany could do it. Therefore, under Musharraf's targeted offensive, most senior Pakistani officials gradually changed their original attitude.

Finally, if it weren't for the president who was running for re-election, the full support of Musharraf in order to gain public opinion, the endless debate might have continued. But even so, the meeting originally planned to hold a day was held for nearly four days before it finally ended. Of course, Musharraf made concessions at the last minute.

Musharraf doesn't care about this. As long as he achieves his goals, it's no big deal to retain the existing bid. No matter how he bids, it's almost the same as a formality in his eyes. As long as he produces his own tank, he doesn't have to talk more, and those opposing guys will shut up!

Musharraf's argument was hard, and Lu Jiadong's side was also not easy. Although Lu Jiadong mentioned similar arms sales plans in many meetings and submitted documents, he found that the difficulties were not small until he was put into practice. However, unlike Musharraf's overall opposition, China does not have much repulsion for the overall transfer and sale.

After all, foreign arms sales have made many people taste the sweetness in recent years, especially the recent arms sales to Iran. The orders for hundreds of Type 62 tanks have made several tank manufacturers work overtime. In addition, the Type 63 armored vehicles and the related ammunition have brought major military factories back to the era of booming production. The factory's benefits have improved, and the hearts of the employees in the factory have stabilized, and the army is even more so.

Therefore, selling tanks in Pakistan is not a problem. No one will think that making more money is a problem. Instead, it thinks it is a good thing. As for building tank production factories in Pakistan, it is not a big deal. More than ten years ago, China has built more factories in Albania and other countries, and at that time it was free of charge.

However, Pakistan is now paying it with real money and silver. No matter how you calculate it, it is a good deal. Anyway, the experience was still retained when building the third line. The construction of the factory is difficult for some countries, but for Chinese military workers, it is not difficult at all.

But the key point is that the tanks needed by Pakistan are not the Type 59 and Type 62 tanks that China can produce on a large scale and have relatively mature technology, but the new high-performance main battle tank. Although China has never stopped exploring and researching in this regard, there has been no breakthrough progress. In this case, how can we ensure that Pakistan's new tanks can be completed smoothly? Because of this, China has many concerns about jointly developing a new tank with Pakistan.

Lu Jiadong is going to do ideological work in China. In his opinion, although there are certain difficulties in developing new tanks, it is not without response technology reserves. In any case, China has been continuously producing Type 59 tanks for nearly 20 years, and the development of new tanks has never been interrupted. It has long understood the development and manufacturing of tanks and has cultivated a large number of skilled technical workers and scientific and technological workers. What we lack now is advanced design ideas and several key supporting systems.

However, these two mountains are not insurmountable natural dangers in Lu Jiadong's eyes. Advanced design ideas are sometimes just a layer of window paper. As long as there is correct guidance and related physical objects, Lu Jiadong believes that mastering advanced ideas is not difficult for experts with solid technical foundation in China. As for China's weak areas such as high-power engines, vehicle sighting systems, and high-performance fire control systems.

You can seek external assistance with the help of Pakistan and then introduce them to the country. Without spending a penny, you can study and learn these shortcomings and then develop similar domestic models to apply them to new domestic tanks. While driving the development of related industries, you can further improve the combat effectiveness of the troops.

However, Lu Jiadong's idea is good, but it cannot be explained clearly in one sentence or two sentences. So in the past half month, Lu Jiadong completely became a flying man. He flew back and forth in Islamabad and Beijing, and then reported the specific plans and plans to Tan Bin and Liu Haotian, and also participated in various seminars to explain the feasibility of the plan. He even made two situation reports with the old leader. Finally, with Comrade Xiaoping's approval, the old leader directly decided to formally determine the matter...

Islamabad, the small auditorium of the Pakistani government is magnificent. After nearly a month of negotiations and consultations, the signing ceremony between China and Pakistan on the joint development of a new tank agreement is being held here. Just now, Liu Haotian has signed a general framework agreement with the Pakistani Chief of Staff on behalf of China. Lu Jiadong, who is sitting at the table, signed a specific agreement on joint development and related technology transfer on behalf of China Defence Technology and the Pakistani military represented by Musharraf.

When Lu Jiadong and Musharraf picked up their pens and signed their respective names on the text at the same time, an assistant beside him stamped the seal with legal effect on it. Then the two of them stood up with the text. Musharraf immediately stretched out his hand to Lu Jiadong:

"The upfront $20 million in start-up capital will be transferred to your company's designated account within one week!"

"Thank you for your support!" Lu Jiadong replied politely, then extended his hand: "I wish us a happy cooperation!"
Chapter completed!