China’s Murky, Stealthy Twins: The second new Chinese fighter—rumored to be the stealthy J-31—which appeared recently in Internet photos appears to be designed for a different mission than China’s stealthy J-20 unveiled last year, said Phillip Saunders, Chinese military expert at National Defense University. Given its large size, analysts believe the J-20 may be built for mission such as “long range-strike … stealthy attacks against AWACS,” or another mission requiring large fuel reserves, Saunders said at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in National Harbor, Md., Sept. 17. “There’s follow-up work to design another stealth fighter. I think what little we’ve seen of the J-31 suggests it’s a smaller aircraft, maybe more suited for different missions,” he added. Analysts are still conflicted over whether the J-20’s size is due to its specialized mission, or merely the limits of Chinese design. “It is a big plane—a bigger plane than the F-22,” explained Saunders. Generally, for stealth purposes “the smaller you are—the better you are in terms of radar cross-section,” he mused.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…