I'm surprised that the likes of Australia, Singapore and South Korea have not been considered; the latter two operate sizeable F-15 fleets which will require replacing some time in the future, and the former needs a long-ranged, stealth aircraft. I also find it hard that the US would be willing to sell NGAD or F/A-XX; even if there was backing to sell them, they are simply too bespoke for anyone's requirements at present.
There's zero chance for South Korea to get in the GCAP bus. No chance the Japanese MPs would allow that to happen, and no chance Korean MPs and President be willing to join either. There have been military cooperation with Japan, as in having joint exercises with the US in the middle, or information sharing agreement and framework between the two countries, but an outright procurement of military equipment, and that being not just any military equipment but a damn fighter jet has a whole another level of political significance. Add to that, a joint development programme? No way in hell that happens. There's zero political will in both countries to make that happen, but maximum political incentive to not make that happen.
Singapore is too close with China to consider sales let alone development partnership. South Korea would be a pride issue on their part, their rather ambitious "plan" to eventually turn the KF-21 into a 6th gen in the 2050s, as well as the export restrictions going against their current export strategy. Australia is one that I would see legitimately hopping on as a partner or at least buying once it's finished.
What do you mean by the first sentence? SG being the only country the US is actually willing to sell F-35 in the SEA region tells a lot, and not just that, they are JSF SCP. If they were "too close" to China it's quite obvious that the US would have at least done something with the SCP status. I don't know what the Japanese government would feel about SG, but if anything, they are most probably more inclined towards F-35B even if GCAP members were interested in getting SG aboard. There's no threat to the F-35B equipped RSAF in the the region for the foreseeable future anyways. Why invest in expensive fighter jet development programme?
The problem with SoKor joining GCAP is not just a mere "pride issue" but more fundamental political issue, that I've touched a bit above. Also, the plan is not to turn KF-21 into a 6th gen fighter in the first place. The more recently publicized vision is to develop a new fighter dubbed "KF-XX" based on the technology developed through KF-21 block 3 programme. I've explained this matter multiple times on the relevant thread so there's no need to expand further here, I feel.
More importantly, F-15K replacement is certainly not going to be KF-21. ROKAF is currently undergoing policy research for future force mix and fighter fleet expansion, and preliminary results points to more "hi" fighters in the hi-lo mix (or to be exact, hi-medium-lo mix, as that's the ROKAF taxonomy) rather than expanding the fleet quantitatively. Up until now, the number of "hi" fighters in ROKAF was capped at 120 aircraft and were procured from abroad through F-X programmes; 4 iteration of F-X, 40 F-15K, 20 F-15K, 40 F-35A and 20 F-35A. What the new policy research indicates is that there would be legal basis for the ROKAF to demand more hi fighters to Joint Chiefs of Staffs.
With the new policy they will not only replace F-15K, but most probably also the KF-16U (or at least part of the 140 of them) with a new, heavy, hi fighter, and that's not a shoe the KF-21 can fill. Also, to develop and replace the aging "hi" fleet with a Korean fighter is relatively new idea. At least up until mid 2010s, the future plan has always been to replace KF-16U with the evolved KF-X (now KF-21 block 3) and the F-15K with another imported "hi" fighter in the 2040s. More importantly, this vision of Korean future "hi" fighter is up in the air, since there's more than 20 years left until ROKAF is planning to retire the F-15K. There's no one who could say for sure how they will be replaced, hence the reason I called it a "vision" rather than a "plan". The priority vision, if I can call it that way.
Frankly, Tempest would've been a perfect fit, though with various programmes taking shape, it became more clear that there ain't much option when it comes to procuring next gen fighter from abroad while keeping the industry going. The birth of this idea of Korean heavy hi fighter would have in part been motivated by the fact that Tempest evolved into GCAP with Japanese participation, and the fact that NGAD seems out of touch, both in terms of US interest in exporting them, as well as Korean financial capabilities to actually procure and operate them.
If the main GCAP partners were to arrange and accept "tier 2" partners in the near future as has been expressed recently, I can definitely see the likes of Saudi Arabia or Australia joining in, but I don't see Korea or Singapore being interested.
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