Reuben Johnson
Key Points and Summary – China’s airpower has entered a startling new era, moving beyond its history of copying Russian designs and stealing U.S. technology to producing a flurry of unique, indigenous combat aircraft.
-In the last year, several new variants and at least three truly new, tailless fighter concepts have appeared.
-While the exact purpose of these secret programs remains a mystery, two facts are clear: China is now innovating independently, and it currently has more new aircraft types in development than the rest of the world combined, raising a critical question about whether the West can keep pace.
China’s Air Force Is Rising Fast
WARSAW, POLAND – Beginning in December 2024, the world has been introduced to several new combat aircraft that were manufactured, as well as designed, in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The latter point is important because since the 1990s, PRC fighters and other military aircraft have been either copies of Russian designs, or there were major sections of the aircraft having not been designed in the PRC (as in the wings of the Y-20 transport/C-17 lookalike that were designed by Antonov in Ukraine), or were otherwise inspired by Russian designs.
Then there is the J-35A/B model fighter aircraft. Both the land-based “A” model and the carrier-capable “B” configuration bear a remarkable resemblance to the US F-35 design. The most significant difference is that this Chinese aircraft is powered by two engines in the class of the US GE F414 engine rather than a single, higher thrust engine with GE F110 performance, as in the case of the F-35.
In 2016, a Chinese national named Su Bin, who was living in Canada, was convicted of stealing classified data on the F-22 and F-35 programs, translating the material into Chinese, and then selling it to entities in the PRC to support their military R&D programs. He had also made numerous trips to the US to interact with hackers and other sources.
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