China's prototype stealth fighter has made its first known test flight, marking dramatic progress in the country's efforts to develop cutting-edge military technology.
The President, Hu Jintao, confirmed the flight in a meeting with the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, Reuters reported.
The prototype plane dubbed the J-20 flew for about 15 minutes yesterday over an airfield in the south-western city of Chengdu where it was spotted carrying out runway tests last week, the Kanwa Asian Defence magazine editor, Andrei Chang, said.
News of the flight emerged as the Chinese Defence Minister sharply defended the nation's arms build-up, pointing to US military sales to Taiwan as a continuing obstacle, and deflected a US request for ''in-depth strategic dialogue'' on nuclear missile defence, space and cyber warfare....Regarding US concerns over new weaponry, including the stealth fighter and an anti-ship ballistic missile potentially capable of hitting a US aircraft carrier, the Defence Minister, General Liang Guanglie, suggested the US was overreacting to an effort to modernise.
''We can by no means call ourselves an advanced military force,'' General Liang said. ''The gap between us and that of advanced countries is at least two to three decades.'' He said China was interested only in its own security and that ''there are some people always in the world who want to label China's military development a so-called threat to the world''.
On Taiwan, the general implied that any further sale of arms would disrupt relations and prompt China to cut off military ties with Washington, as it has repeatedly in the past.
And from the Lowy Interpreter we get some further analysis. This, when read in conjunction with the Crikey article from Monday about the JSF vs J-20 vs Russia's PAK-FA situation (basically, when the JSF was conceptualised, China and Russia would have been nowhere near having a competitor for a fair amount of time after the JSF became operational), does seem to point to a further shake up in the Asia Pacific region and even down to what China's intentions will be.
Once again, we come to the questions "Rise of China? Resurgence of China?" and "What role will China play, from a security standpoint, in the region?"
As far as the JSF goes, what choice does Australia have? As Paul Barratt, who has extensive experience in this area tweeted me:
What choice do we have? We won' t buy Russian or Chinese for good reason, can only buy the aircraft that are available to us.
What choice indeed?
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