New Threats Revealed at China’s Zhuhai Airshow

Chinese J-20 stealth fighters of the People's Liberation Army perform at the Airshow China 2022 in Zhuhai in Guangdong Province, China, on Nov. 8, 2022. CNS/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Although canceled in 2020 because of COVID-19, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Zhuhai air, ground, and naval weapons show is staged every two years, primarily to show to the United States, Japan, and Taiwan the accelerating military investments it will use to defeat Taiwan, then subdue the United States and all other democracies on its way to global hegemony.

During its 14th Zhuhai Airshow on Nov. 8–13, China formally displayed for the first time its fifth-generation fighter, revealed new air- and sea-launched ballistic missiles to target the U.S. Navy, displayed scores of new unmanned combat systems and its progress with unmanned-manned integration, and revealed progress in securing hegemony over the moon.

Chengdu J-20

Although its political “first flight” was famously staged on Jan. 11, 2011, to embarrass visiting then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the J-20 fifth-generation stealth air superiority fighter, developed by China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force, was formally displayed for the first time at the Zhuhai Airshow.

A Chinese J-20 stealth fighter of the People’s Liberation Army performs at the Airshow China 2022 in Zhuhai in Guangdong Province, China, on Nov. 8, 2022.  CNS/AFP via Getty Images

Its flight line exposure allowed viewing of production numbers, allowing PLA aircraft expert Andreas Rupprecht to estimate for Defense News that J-20 production may now exceed 200. This fighter has greater maneuverability, range, and stealth protection than the fourth-generation fighters of Japan, Taiwan, and the United States.

In a speech on July 16, 2009, on justifying the production termination of the Lockheed-Martin F-22A, the most capable U.S. fifth-generation fighter, at 187, Gates said China “is projected to have no fifth-generation aircraft by 2020.”

On the Zhuhai flight line, it was possible to see for the first time that the J-20’s airframe stealth paneling and coatings have a precision and finish that approached that of U.S. stealth fighters, likely aided by China’s late 2000s cyber espionage against Lockheed.

At a Nov. 8 press availability, former J-20 chief designer Yang Wei, who’s likely now leading China’s sixth-generation fighter program, told Chinese reporters that there would be a second and a third version of the J-20.

In 2016, Yang coauthored a paper that proposed a bomber or strike version of the J-20. In the early 2000s, the U.S. Air Force briefly considered a larger FB-22 bomber version of the F-22A, but the Bush administration rejected it.

For the first time at Zhuhai, the Aero Engine Corporation of China displayed a model of a WS-10A fighter engine with a two-dimensional thrust vectoring system as is used by the F-22A to confer “supermaneuverability,” which would be ideally suited for the closely mounted engines of the J-20.

New Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles

The Zhuhai Airshow also revealed new air-launched and ship-launched ballistic missiles that could threaten Taiwan and U.S. Navy ships.

On Nov. 3, a Xian Aircraft Corporation H-6K bomber arrived at Zhuhai with two large missiles on wing pylons. Although so far unidentified, they strongly resemble new second-generation short-range ballistic missiles that could have been made by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) or the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC).

Taiwanese Air Force F-16 fighter jet flies alongside a Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force H-6K bomber in the western Pacific, one of the Chinese military aircraft that reportedly flew over Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait near Japan’s Okinawa island chain on the morning of May 11, 2018. Taiwan ROC Air Force

An H-6K may be able to carry up to four missiles. With an estimated air-launched range of more than 300 miles and capable of low hypersonic speeds, they would pose a greater threat than the CASIC 250-mile range and supersonic speed anti-ship YJ-12 cruise missile that’s currently in use.

The threat to U.S. and allied ships also increased at Zhuhai with the revelation of two new anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs): the CASC YJ-21, a two-stage missile seen in 2021 being launched from a Type 055 cruiser, and the first display of the CASIC CM-103, which resembles early versions of the U.S. Raytheon SM-6 surface-to-air-missile.

A missile is launched from an unspecified location in China on Aug. 4, 2022. The Chinese military fired missiles into waters near Taiwan as part of its planned exercises on Aug. 4. CCTV via AP

The respective ranges for these missiles weren’t revealed, but a future U.S. Army ballistic version of the SM-6 may have a range of 1,200 miles.

The PLA navy has more than 2,300 vertical launch system “tubes” on its cruisers, destroyers, and frigates that could further increase the saturation of U.S. Navy ships with land-, air-, and now sea-launched ASBMs.

Unmanned Weapons Proliferation

For more than 20 years, since 2001, China has invested massively in the most conceivable unmanned weapon systems and displayed at Zhuhai that a second phase of joining manned and unmanned weapons operations is well underway.

China’s main PLA ground-force weapons maker, China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO), displayed this melding of unmanned and manned military operations in a poster display of its “New Generation Brigade Combat Team,” in which 7 out of 10 battalions employed unmanned combat and/or surveillance systems in cooperation with manned weapons.

People watch a robotic dog at the Apsara Conference, a cloud computing and artificial intelligence conference in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, China, on Nov. 3, 2022. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Gaining some attention was a possible NORINCO four-legged “dog” robot armed with a QBB-97 light machine gun that can fire 650 rounds a minute—from a prone position.

As the United States and some of its allies are also working to develop new unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) similar in size and performance to fighter aircraft to accompany manned fighters, bombers, and support aircraft, China revealed at Zhuhai that similar efforts are underway.

A new version of the CASC FH-97A unmanned escort/strike fighter showed an evolution from the first version revealed at the 2021 Zhuhai show, stressing new sensors that could enable unmanned and potentially artificial intelligence-enabled air-to-air combat capabilities.

The FH-97A, or the new fighter-size CAC CS-5000T flying wing UCAV, could also perform suppression of enemy air defense missions to assist manned strike aircraft missions or perform strike missions as well.

CAC also revealed its Wing Loong-3 (WL-3), a very large 13,600-pound turboprop-powered UCAV with a 40-hour endurance to enforce a blockade or attack targets. This is almost three times the endurance of the U.S. General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper that the WL-3 resembles.

In addition, the Zhuhai show displayed scores of small vertical take-off UCAVs that could be used to surveil or bomb troops—much as Ukrainian and Russian forces are employing against each other—and many new wheeled and tracked unmanned ground vehicles equipped for combat and transport missions.

Moon Mission Clarity

China also used the Zhuhai show to reveal new details about its ambitions to send its people to the moon.

A visitor looks at the model of the lunar landing return capsule during Explore CASCI (China Aerospace Science and Cultural Innovation) ART Exhibition in Wuhan, China, on Oct. 2, 2022. (Getty Images）

Timed with the show, a Nov. 8 article in the CCP’s China Youth Daily quoted Zhao Xinguo, head of the Aerospace Department of the First Academy of CASC, saying for the first time that China’s first manned space launch vehicle for lunar missions, now called the Long March-5G, could make its first flight by 2027.

This means that both the astronaut-carrying and manned moon lander versions of the 27 tons of cargo to the moon-capable Long March-5G could be tested in time potentially to enable the first Chinese manned mission to the moon by 2029.

This means that former President Barack Obama’s 2010 decision to cancel former President George W. Bush’s constellation moon program has likely aided China’s arrival on the moon within two to three years of the U.S.-planned 2026 or 2027 return to the moon.

In addition, Chinese sources explained that a new version of the 50 tons to the moon Long March-9 would prioritize a reusable first stage, discarding previous versions that weren’t reusable. 

As such, the United States will gain little “head start” in building a strategic position on the moon to help deter China’s militarization of the moon, meaning conflict on the moon becomes more likely.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.