Each and every time Pakistan wants to do a project like JF17 "on its own", it cannot do it because it does not have the required infrastructure in place and people, so the barrier to that project seems insurmountable and tends to go nowhere.
Pakistan will now bring in a turnkey airframe manufacturing infrastructure into Pakistan via the J17C-P and turn out some JF17C-P's for that programme. This is the same approach that Türkiye took, where it manufactured the F16 in Turkey and then reused that same infrastructure and people to attempt the Kaan project. So, this is not about further developing the JF17C, it is about "finally" building a core infrastructure base in Pakistan that Pakistan can use on other projects. Pakistan will "simply pay the cost now to get over that recurring barrier regardless". It has historically avoided paying that cost on the basis of cost-efficiency of the project.
I think JF17C-P is achievable and Pakistan will move in that direction. I have serious doubts about JF17-PX programme, but we should treat what we refer to the JF17CP programme separately from the JF17-PX programme.
JF17C-P maybe a stepping stone to JF17C-PX, but i suspect that Pakistan will only get as far as JF17C-P if the intention is to make the JF17C-PX larger for new capabilities, which Pakistan does not possess the skillset to do(imho).