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OPINION:
The long-held notion that Chinese fighter jets are inferior to their Western counterparts was rudely punctured last month during a massive aerial dogfight between India and Pakistan.
Among other matchups, the contest pitted the French-built Rafale fighters against Chinese-made platforms, including the J-10C Vigorous Dragon.
Some analysts have cautioned against reading too much into this engagement, but the India-Pakistan clash was no trifling encounter. It lasted four days, involved more than 100 aircraft and provided a wealth of data that military analysts will mine for years to come.
New Delhi initially denied any aircraft losses, but its defense chief has acknowledged that some of India’s planes were knocked out of the sky during battle. Independent news organizations report that Pakistani jets shot down at least one Rafale, marking the first time a modern Chinese-made plane has downed a Western platform.
The People’s Liberation Army has poured huge resources into modernizing its air force over many decades. China’s J-10C is a formidable multirole fighter equipped with an advanced suite of electronics and air-to-air missiles.
The mini proxy war between Chinese and Western-made platforms has far-reaching implications. For starters, the performance of Chinese-made jets will likely boost China’s arms exports at the expense of Europe’s defense industry. China’s inability to produce reliable jet engines was once the bane of its aerospace sector. Early versions of China’s J-10 had to incorporate more reliable Russian-built engines. Not anymore. J-10C variants now come equipped with high-performing Chinese-manufactured engines.
More broadly, the India-Pakistan air battle may give China’s leadership more confidence that its armed forces are capable of conquering Taiwan and repelling any “third-party” (read: U.S. military) counterintervention.
The U.S. military has long taken comfort in the fact that Chinese pilots lack real-world combat experience, but this did not stop Pakistani pilots from downing Western aircraft in the clash. This suggests that combat experience now matters less because foreign pilots have access to increasingly sophisticated simulators.
Calling the battle a “dogfight” is a misnomer because all the shooting occurred well beyond visual range. Neither side violated the other’s sovereign airspace. The ability of Chinese aircraft to shoot down Western platforms from afar should be front of mind to U.S. military planners war-gaming Taiwan scenarios.
Though considered an advanced fourth-generation fighter, the J-10C is far from being China’s most advanced combat aircraft. In a shooting war, U.S. fighters would have to contest with even more sophisticated aircraft, such as China’s stealthy J-20.
China’s technological aerial prowess is not the only concern. The ability of its industrial base to produce advanced platforms in copious quantities means U.S. pilots will have to fight outnumbered if war erupts. Note also that China’s air force is concentrated in the Indo-Pacific region, giving it a “home field” advantage in any fight over Taiwan, whereas U.S. airpower is dispersed in the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.
U.S. forces in the Pacific would also have to contend with China’s growing arsenal of hypersonic weapons — fearsome missiles that combine maneuverability with blazing speed. The ballistic missiles Iran has used to barrage Tel Aviv are primitive by comparison.
For decades, the U.S. had a healthy lead in researching hypersonic weapons. Those days are over. In recent years, China has raced ahead and deployed hypersonic weapons, leaving the U.S., at least for the time being, in its contrails.
The U.S. needs to defend key military bases in Guam, Okinawa and mainland Japan against the full suite of potential Chinese attacks. Even relatively low-tech weapons can present a serious threat, as Ukraine’s recent long-range drone assault on Russian air bases demonstrated.
The India-Pakistan clash provided a glimpse of what the U.S. military would face in a major fight with China, putting an exclamation point on the threat posed by ambitious Chinese modernization programs.
The punch list for restoring America’s dominance in the wild blue yonder is long. Better equipping U.S. air and naval bases in the Pacific against the threat of Chinese air, missile and drone attacks is essential.
However, protecting these sites with defensive weaponry is not enough. Congress also must ensure that hypersonic ballistic and cruise missile programs in development are fielded in numbers that would make a real difference in the event of conflict. The sooner, the better.
• James H. Anderson served as deputy undersecretary of defense for policy during the first Trump administration.
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