THE Aircraft Manufacturing Factory (AMF) at Kamra will hand over the first JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft that it manufactures, to the PAF, in December, with the formation of a JF-17 squadron, after unveiling it on November 23. Apart from beginning the process of replacing the ageing fleet of A-5s, F-7s and Mirages operated by the PAF, the hand-over will not just represent a milestone in the history of the Kamra Aeronautical Complex, but also in the history of Pak-China defence cooperation, which saw its most recent peak in the manufacture of the jet on Pakistan soil. After the Mushak and the Karakoram-8, training jets licensed respectively by Sweden and China, the JF-17 is the main project of the AMF, and started in January, after the project itself was started in 1995. The JF-17 saw Pakistani participation all along, in all phases of design and then manufacture, and represents a genuine transfer of technology, apart from providing a substitute for other air superiority fighters. The JF-17 is a fully modern jet fighter, comparable to the best available, and is state-of-the-art. To be able to manufacture a fighter of this level of sophistication is evidence of great scientific advancement, and the ability to match any country in the world. Its manufacture is a tribute to the achievement by the PAF personnel working on them, and should mean more national independence, not subordination to the diktat of any foreign power. It also reflects on how Pakistani scientific and technical personnel have worked with the Chinese in development, rather than acting as passive receptacles for transfer of technology. However, perhaps the most important aspect of this manufacture is that the AMF is on Pakistani soil, not foreign, and cannot be switched off by a foreign supplier to suit its own foreign policy objectives, as Pakistan has experienced in the past. The indigenous nuclear and missile programmes, for which Pakistan may have paid a high price, show the advantages of not depending on anyone else for technology, and of having manufacturing facilities at home, and the JF-17 manufacture is another example of that national independence and self-reliance to which the Founding Fathers aspired.