American magazine NSJ reported on August 21 that China's J-20 has given the U.S. Air Force a lesson.

The report believes that the U.S. military can no longer wait for the arrival of the sixth-generation aircraft era, otherwise it will face a chain reaction of air power gap, weakened regional deterrence, and even a decline in strategic position.

In the field of fifth-generation aircraft competition, which should have been dominated by the United States, China not only caught up but has also achieved substantial superiority over the United States in many key aspects.

The concerns of American media are certainly not baseless.

Currently, although the U.S. F-35 has delivered more than a thousand units, its global distribution, complex technical maintenance, and limited mission sortie rate cannot maintain high-intensity regional air supremacy.

While they have high hopes for the next-generation air dominance system NGAD, it currently does not even have a clear production schedule.

It is expected to be deployed around 2030, and its high cost makes it difficult to form large-scale combat capability in the short term.

This means that for the next five to seven years, the U.S. Air Force's fifth-generation aircraft capabilities will basically remain stagnant.

Meanwhile, China continues to increase the annual production of the J-20 and deploys these aircraft in the most needed positions.

When the real battlefield is already filled with new opponents, talking about the future will be too late.

J-20

It is precisely this practical disparity that has led the American media to exclaim: the J-20 has indeed given the U.S. Air Force a lesson.

This fifth-generation stealth fighter, independently developed by China, has been steadily advancing since its service in 2017, breaking the Western perception of China as a technological follower in the air force.

In just a few years, the J-20 has not only completed the leap from prototype, low-speed mass production to high-intensity deployment, but has also entered the main air force battalions in the Eastern Theater, Southern Theater, and even the Western Theater at an astonishing pace.

It is estimated that China currently has about 200 J-20s, with 12 air force battalions deploying them, including multiple combat-oriented forces.

What worries the American media the most is not the number itself, but China's approach to handling such high-end combat power: directly using it for practical exercises.

This is something the Western countries are least accustomed to.

In their view, stealth fighters should be noble and rare, used with careful consideration.

But China's logic is: advanced weapons should not be put on display, but rather integrated into the system and play an effective role.

The way the J-20 exists has changed the Western understanding of the significance of fighter jets and broken their psychological advantage.

Chinese Aircraft

The core behind this transformation is the word "production volume."

In contemporary air force competition, quantity is not just a number, but a strategic resource that determines victory or defeat.

Firstly, with enough J-20s, China can achieve rotation, coverage, and emergency response in different theaters, rather than concentrating advanced aircraft in a few bases as a symbolic existence, as some countries do;

Secondly, modern air combat is no longer a one-on-one elite confrontation, but a high-intensity system-to-system confrontation, requiring sufficient fleet size to support long-duration operations, replacements, and losses;

Thirdly, only through mass production can avionics equipment, logistics maintenance, pilot training, and tactical innovation truly move towards industrialization and standardization.

More importantly, the production volume represents the country's overall manufacturing and organizational capabilities.

F-22 has been discontinued, F-35's production capacity is limited, while the J-20 is building a new assembly plant in Chengdu and upgrading its pulse production line, increasing its annual production to over 100 units, which is itself a manifestation of national strategic capability.

In the stage of fifth-generation aircraft competition, China has not only caught up in performance, but also surpassed in production capacity, which is the most critical part of modern warfare.

American Aircraft

Therefore, according to the American media, if they continue to underestimate the J-20 project and only rely on the sixth-generation aircraft system after the 2030s, they may lose aerial superiority and suffer strategic defeat.

Firstly, the U.S. military may lose control of the airspace over the Western Pacific. Once the J-20 achieves overwhelming numerical superiority, the U.S. military's air operations in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea will face substantial containment, making traditional tactics of first securing air superiority then launching strikes unimplementable.

Secondly, the deterrent power of the U.S. in the eyes of its Asian allies will be greatly reduced.

Countries like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines dare to rely on the U.S. because they believe in the U.S.'s overwhelming aerial superiority. Once this is broken by the J-20, those alliance commitments will become empty promises.

Thirdly, the global air power belief that the U.S. has long built may collapse.

The F-22, as a symbol, has exited production, the F-35, although numerous, lacks flexibility, and the next generation of aircraft has yet to mature. During this gap period, China's fifth-generation aircraft are starting to flood in, and even three types of sixth-generation aircraft have appeared. If we can't match now or in the future, then it won't just be a question of how to contain China anymore.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7541292257246085686/

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