China deploying new ‘push the envelope’ fighter enabling offensive warfare - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

Very bad news for Taiwan.

The latest military news from China signals a shift toward offensive warfare, and offers grim prospects to its neighbors in Asia, first and foremost Taiwan. (China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and threatens a military takeover if peaceful reunification fails.) An article by Kristin Huang of the South China Morning Post tells the story of a new fighter aimed at offensive warfare:

China’s air force quietly adds new J-16 fighter jets to ‘push the envelope’

Expanded line-up of multirole all-weather aircraft will help to launch strikes deep into enemy territory and destroy key strategic assets, analysts say

China’s expanding line-up of multirole, all-weather J-16 fighter jets will help the air force to launch strikes deep into enemy territory and destroy key strategic assets like airfields and bridges, military analysts say. (snip)

…the Shenyang J-16 will become a key part of PLA Air Force operations and any strategy against Taiwan or to deter US military intervention, they said.

China’s air force announced last week that a squadron of J-16s would soon be combat ready.

It is based on the Russian Sujhoi-30 fighter, but with a Chinese engine and:

While the aircraft design is largely based on the Su-30, the J-16 features a Chinese radar and tracking system. It also has a provision for in-flight refuelling – giving it the capacity to strike deep into enemy territory and greater operational range. An electronic attack version, the J-16D, is also under development. China wants that fighter jet to be equivalent to the US EA-18G Growler – the most advanced airborne electronic attack platform.

The intent is obvious and chilling:

Electronic warfare is seen as the key to winning any conflict over the Taiwan Strait, with the ability to overwhelm enemy radar systems in the first few hours considered crucial.

Military experts said the J-16, with its large payload and long range, could transform China’s defensive air force into an offensive one.

“Before the J-16, the PLA has had to rely on a limited number of Russian-built Su-30s, whereas the indigenous J-10 lacks the range and payload to qualify as a true deep-strike fighter,” said Collin Koh, a research fellow with the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

China is a far more threatening strategic rival for America than Russia, orders of magnitude larger in population and GNP, and growing far more quickly. Its ongoing large scale theft of intellectual property has powered both its economy and military weapons programs.  

In addition to building up its air force, China is building and deploying aircraft carriers and may have as many as 7 deployed by 2025. Aircraft carriers are incredibly huge and complex, and China is having some issues with its sole “combat ready” carrier deployed at present, but new ones already in the works promise more capability.  Ryan Pickrell of Business Insider writes:

The capabilities of China's current carrier force are severely limited by several serious weaknesses, making it vastly inferior to the US Navy, but the one it has in the works is where the world could start to see the Chinese navy closing the gap with its primary competitor.

Developing a carrier force to match the US globally is a much longer term challenge. China has not even come close to being able to use a nuclear reactor to power its carriers, for instance, and also faces issues in pilot training for carrier operations. But China’s current aim is regional domination, sitting as it does in the middle of the fastest-growing area of the world, a region that it dominated for thousands of years as the “Middle Kingdom.”

Virtually everyone in China looks at their country as the natural hegemon in the world, temporarily (for roughly four centuries) knocked out of its position of dominating East Asia and its status as the biggest and richest country in the world, by Western imperialism that brought mass opium addiction and social collapse. Return to the natural order of things with China on top is a goal that most tacitly, if not actively, support.

Flag/map of China via Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/china_deploying_new_push_the_envelope_fighter_enabling_offensive_warfare.html

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