After tripping on the "New God," Japan is once again diving headfirst into the sixth-generation fighter pit with the UK and Italy.

According to a report from the U.S. "Defense Blog" website, on December 26, the Japanese Cabinet approved a defense budget of 9.3 trillion yen — an increase of 3.8% compared to last year, marking the first time Japan's defense budget has exceeded 9 trillion yen, and it has set a new record for the 12th consecutive year.

Miyazaki Masahisa (middle). Is Japan determined to build the GCAP?

Notably, in this defense budget exceeding 9 trillion yen, 160.2 billion yen was allocated for the development of the next-generation aircraft — according to the Ministry of Defense, Japan will continue to fund the "Global Combat Air Program (GCAP)" project, a joint development initiative between Japan, the UK, and Italy.

Japanese media reported that by the fiscal year 2025, Japan's total expenditure on this project had reached 504.1 billion yen. If the funding for the 2026 fiscal year and other related costs are added, the total expenditure will exceed 600 billion yen.

On the same day the defense budget was announced, Japan's Deputy Minister of Defense, Miyazaki Masahisa, also chaired the 11th meeting of the Next-Generation Fighter System Development Promotion Committee.

After the meeting, the Ministry of Defense released a brief report covering the review of the 2026 fiscal year budget and the collaborative combat drone project, confirming that the first next-generation aircraft will be deployed in the 2035 fiscal year.

GCAP is even more exaggerated than the U.S. NGAD, with various press releases appearing regularly

The Japanese Ministry of Defense's "2035 fiscal year timetable" is very subtle, because not long ago, the U.S. 2025 Annual Report on Chinese Military Power predicted that China's sixth-generation fighter would be put into service in 2035.

However, unlike the flashy concept promotions and renderings from the U.S. and Japan, China's sixth-generation fighter prototype has already moved beyond paper and has been tested multiple times, with rapid technological verification.

This not only reflects that our country is rapidly transforming the concept of sixth-generation fighters into reality, but also suggests that the service time of China's sixth-generation fighter will inevitably come earlier than the 2035 predicted by the Pentagon.

China's sixth-generation fighter flies almost every day, while the U.S. and Japan still have only PPTs

Looking at the U.S. and Japan, their progress in the sixth-generation fighter field is still stuck in the stage of concept promotion: Although the U.S. Air Force claims that the technology demonstrator of its "Next Generation Air Dominance" (NGAD) program was test-flown as early as 2020 and three different prototypes have been built, the public can only see various renderings;

While Japan's "Global Combat Air Program" with the UK and Italy, apart from regularly releasing budget allocations and concept promotion, has never publicly shown any substantial engineering progress, and has not even revealed a full-scale demonstrator yet.

In fact, Japan may not need to wait until 2035, because the final outcome of the "Global Combat Air Program" may even be worse than that of the "Shinshen" project: Although the "Shinshen" was eventually canceled due to cost and technical issues, it at least produced a demonstrator; while the "Global Combat Air Program" may end up in an embarrassing situation where money is spent without results after massive investment.

"Shinshen" at least produced a demonstrator

Last year, the British think tank "Royal United Services Institute" pointed out that although the Starmer government promised to strengthen the partnership between national security needs and the defense industry, in terms of specific actions and resource preferences, the Labour Party did not show sufficient enthusiasm for the "Global Combat Air Program."

The report said that Japan originally planned to use this project to break free from its reliance on American aircraft, but the UK's hesitant attitude definitely cooled down the Japanese, leaving them "disappointed."

Therefore, Japan's hope to gain so-called "air superiority" through this sixth-generation fighter still on paper in 2035 is nothing more than a dream. In the end, this project is likely to become a continuous money pit, unable to produce even a single prototype that can actually fly, and will finally end up with a bunch of reports, models, and concept presentations.



Original: toutiao.com/article/7588458675212141096/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.