China is beginning “mass production” of fifth-generation J-20B stealth fighter jets in a bid to seize control of the local airspace from neighboring U.S. allies.
“It’s going to be really hard for us to keep up with the numbers that China’s going to have,” said the American Enterprise Institute’s Zack Cooper, a former Pentagon official who specializes in U.S.-China military competition. “That’s going to be a really big struggle.”
Chinese officials announced the manufacturing initiative last week, just as State Department officials finalized plans to approve a $23 billion deal to sell 105 F-35 fighter jets to Japan.
“The U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of peace, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” a State Department official said. “We value Japan’s purchase of advanced U.S. defense items, taking on new roles and missions within the alliance and contributing more to international security.”
That reference to Japan’s “new roles and missions” likely will deepen Beijing’s belief that Tokyo’s military buildup represents a threat. “Washington is a wolf,” the Global Times, a Chinese state-run propaganda outlet, said of the U.S. decision to approve the sale. “Wolves always go hunt in group. And as an alpha wolf, it is leading a so-called international coalition with wolf pack tactics.”
For China, stealth fighter jets could prove valuable in a prospective invasion of Taiwan — the island refuge of the government overthrown during the Chinese Communist revolution, analysts say.
“The Chinese are interested in air superiority because air superiority is seen as an important prerequisite” for any conflict on the ground or at sea, the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng said. “Advanced surface-to-air missile systems are very, very lethal, so the idea that you’re going to fly a combat mission with non-stealthy aircraft is pretty much a nonstarter.”
Japan, on the other hand, could use the F-35s to defend its interests in the Senkaku Islands, which are claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo, as well as other small islands south of Okinawa and near Taiwan. These islands have outsized military importance because they can hold outposts for observing or even interfering with Chinese efforts to sail warships from the mainland into the open ocean.
“So, one of the fears is that in the event of a conflict between China and Japan, or China and the United States, or even China and Taiwan, that maybe the Chinese would try to grab these little islands,” Cheng added.
That’s an important issue for American strategists. Not only does the U.S. have a security treaty with Japan and a long-standing policy of buttressing Taiwanese defenses against China, but constraints on Beijing’s ability to flex military muscle in the region are also valuable in light of Washington’s perception that the rising communist power is engaged in “a cold war” with the U.S.
Still, the lethality of China’s new challenge is unknown. “We’re not going to really know how good the J-20 is until we see it in combat,” Cooper said. “And hopefully, that’s not going to happen for quite some time.”
