Are China's New Military Jets For Real?

China's J-10 fighter jets perform during an air show. Reuters/Stringer

Tobin Harshaw, Bloomberg: China's New Jets Are Impressive. But Are They for Real?

There was a brief but impressive show of new U.S. aircraft technology this week. The problem is that the planes belong to the Chinese military.

Aided in large part by espionage against the Pentagon and U.S. firms, the People's Liberation Army air force unveiled its new J-20 stealth fighter, which it says is a so-called fifth-generation fighter like the American F-22 and F-35. Two J-20s flew for just a few minutes at an airshow in Zhuhai on Tuesday, leaving military experts of two minds about what the J-20 is actually capable of.

While Bradley Perrett of Aviation Week warned it was "clearly a big step forward in Chinese combat capability," Greg Waldon of the consultancy FlightGlobal said the big reveal of the flyby was "we learned it was loud."

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WNU Editor: I suspect that they are very capable. And I also suspect that U.S. intelligence has already made their evaluation (via through spies and hacking China's own computer networks) on how effective these aircraft really are.