What China’s Not Telling Us: How Their Stealth Fighter Leveled Up Against the U.S.

China’s advanced stealth fighter, the J-20, undergoes extensive analysis by U.S. military
Recently caught on their own radar

China is rapidly striving to catch up with U.S. military power. This is happening not only in naval power but also in air force power. By stealing U.S. secret technology, China has overcome the decades-long gap between the U.S. and its own air force, successfully developing the advanced fighter jet, the J-20. From the perspective of the U.S. military, this fighter jet represents a situation that cannot be overlooked.

The U.S. military in the South Pacific region over Taiwan has encountered a situation with the Chinese Air Force several times in a standoff. During this process, analysts evaluated the many fighter jets China operates and compared them with the power of the U.S. Air Force. Let’s take a brief look at the analysis from the U.S. military, along with the recent training conducted by the Chinese Air Force.

J-20, developed based on F-22
It still secures air superiority for the U.S. military

It’s now well-known that Chinese hackers who leaked F-22 technology influenced the development of the J-20. This is evident from several advanced specifications of the F-22, which is challenging to achieve with Chinese technology alone, appearing in the J-20. Here lies why the U.S. military cannot ignore the Chinese Air Force.

Despite this, the U.S. military has assessed that the current air superiority the U.S. Air Force holds is still maintained. Although it is difficult to see the performance of the J-20 surpassing that of the U.S.’s multirole stealth aircraft, the F-35, it is at least slightly inferior or, in extreme cases, possibly equivalent. The U.S. military has confirmed that the performance of the J-20 is better than expected.

J-20 caught on their own radar network
Possibly a propaganda move

Recently, China conducted a ground-to-air training exercise with the J-20 and announced that their air defense radar successfully detected the J-20. Considering this fact alone, one might find it hard to understand why they would publicly declare their advanced stealth fighter jet, heavily promoted domestically, was detectable by their own radar network.

However, this can also serve as propaganda for their own air defense network, suggesting they can sufficiently detect stealth aircraft like the F-35 used by the U.S. military and its allies. Considering that the U.S. military seizes air superiority and then carries out extensive tactical bombings, this could be a kind of strategic propaganda.