China continues to strengthen its military capabilities, combining rapid growth in conventional power with readiness to counter U.S. asymmetrical strategies.
The implications of these recent developments impact ongoing US encroachment in the Asia-Pacific and the looming prospect of an Ukraine-style war the US appears eager to launch against China. However, just as the US has demonstrated elsewhere, what it lacks in military and industrial power, it makes up for in political influence and its asymmetrical capacity to destabilize and destroy entire regions of the planet.
China’s Expanding Air Force
At the Zhuhai Airshow in November 2024, China unveiled its twin-engine Shenyang J-35 fifth-generation fighter. Defense News would note that the J-35’s introduction together with the mass-produced Chengdu J-20 makes China only the second nation in the world to field two types of fifth-generation warplanes besides the US with its F-22 and F-35 fighters.
While many attempts have been made to dismiss China’s fifth-generation warplanes as cheap copies of American warplanes, both the J-35 and J-20 represent entirely different designs fulfilling entirely different requirements, and mass-produced with flexible and rapidly updated manufacturing techniques quickly closing the fifth-generation fighter gap with the US.
Not only does this mean China will possess at least as many fighter planes as the US, it also means China will be able to rapidly replace lost aircraft in the event of any peer or near-peer conflict, including with the United States.
In 2022, South China Morning Post reported that China was speeding up production of its J-20 warplane, often seen as China’s answer to the US F-22. At the time, it was estimated China had produced up to 200 J-20s, a comparable number to the current number of F-22s the US operates.
By 2024, Air & Space Forces Magazine would report that China may be building up to 100 J-20 airframes per year – all of which are for use by China’s armed forces. While the US produces 135 F-35s a year (with 1,000 produced in total), most of these aircraft are for export to US allies. Because Chinese production of the J-20 has increased since its introduction, it cannot be ruled out that China will continue producing these aircraft at an accelerated rate.
With the introduction of the J-35 last November, a similar production rate may follow.
US airpower has been the central factor in upholding US and Western military supremacy since the end of the Cold War. More recently, the impact of Western military aviation has been blunted by the proliferation of advanced air defense systems, a field the US and Europe neglected throughout the Cold War and has fallen even further far behind since.
China possesses one of the largest and most advanced integrated air defense networks in the world, including proven Russian air defense systems as well as indigenous systems based on proven Russian designs.
Together with China’s expanding fleet of warplanes, China is gradually establishing a two-fold advantage within and along China’s borders and shores. While the US still has a larger air force than China, it should be noted that US warplanes are dispersed across the planet among the hundreds of military bases the US maintains stretching from the US itself, across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and of course, the Asia-Pacific.
It is unrealistic for the US to concentrate all of its warplanes in any potential conflict with China without conceding military domination elsewhere around the globe. Likewise, deeply investing in conflicts against Russia or Iran directly means expending limited warplanes and munitions the US wants to preserve for potential conflict with China.
China’s Expanding Navy
The US government and arms industry-funded Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) published a June........