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Liu Zhen

Almost a decade has passed since the People’s Liberation Army pulled the trigger on President Xi Jinping’s plans for a massive overhaul of the world’s biggest military. In the second of a series on Chinese weapons systems, we look at the J-20 stealth fighter jet.
On a normal day over the East China Sea, three signals no bigger than tiny birds appear on a ground-based radar. They are an American F-35 stealth fighter jet, followed by two Chinese J-20s.
There is a radio exchange between the two sides, and in the blink of an eye the warplanes are gone from view.
As tensions simmer in the region and China and the United States ramp up their military presence, these encounters – involving some of the world’s most advanced fighter jets like the Chinese J-20 – are becoming increasingly regular.
The Mighty Dragon
The Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter jet, also known as the Mighty Dragon, is a symbol of the Chinese military’s modernisation.
It is seen as the People’s Liberation Army’s best hope against the most advanced stealth fighters of the US Air Force.
The single-seat, twin-engine aircraft is considered China’s answer to the F-22 Raptor made by Lockheed Martin.
Like the F-22, it is around 20 metres long with a wingspan of about 13 metres, it weighs 19 tonnes and has a flight ceiling of 20km. Both jets also have the same goal: achieving air superiority.
The J-20 is a fifth-generation fighter jet – meaning it has stealth and supersonic cruise capabilities, super manoeuvrability and super avionics.




For stealth, developer Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group has given the J-20 a shape that reduces reflection, a radar-absorbent coating and an internal weapons bay.
It has digitally controlled canard wings – small wings in front of the main wing – to increase manoeuvrability.
Integrated avionics and sensor equipment include a low-observable active electronically scanned array, or AESA radar, that can track multiple targets in any weather.
Its internal fuel tank can sustain a combat range of 1,100km – the same as Lockheed Martin’s F-35A and better than the F-22.
The J-20 also has six armament bays that can carry six long-range missiles or precision-guided bombs for air-to-air combat or air-to-surface attack.
But the aircraft has been plagued by “heart disease” caused by inferior engines that affected its manoeuvrability and stealth at supersonic speeds. Following engine upgrades, the PLA confirmed in May that the J-20 now has supersonic cruise capability – years after it was commissioned.
Development timeline
A J-20 prototype turned heads on its maiden flight in January 2011 in Chengdu – partly because US defence chief Robert Gates was in Beijing at the time, meeting Chinese leader Hu Jintao.
Five years later, two J-20s made their public debut at the 2016 Zhuhai air show.
The jets entered military service in September 2017, and the PLA Air Force announced the first of the stealth fighters were combat ready in February 2018. Mass production started in 2020.


In October 2021, a new variant of the J-20 with two seats was revealed – the world’s first twin-seat stealth fighter.
By the end of 2022, based on serial numbers seen on the warplanes, it was estimated that at least 200 J-20s had been produced and deployed to air force squadrons across the PLA’s theatre commands.
Getting to that stage has involved a long struggle with engine problems. The first J-20 prototype was powered by two Russian-made AL-31 engines and as it developed it continued to rely on either the imported AL-31s or the home-grown WS-10B engine.
None of them were up to the task and they hindered the jet’s capacity for supercruise – reaching supersonic speeds without the use of afterburners – as well as manoeuvrability and stealth capacity.
Developer CAIG decided to upgrade to the Chinese-made WS-10C engine, a process that began in early 2022. The new J-20s with improved engines and performance have been dubbed J-20Bs by some observers.
Meanwhile, the development of a new turbofan engine known as the WS-15 Emei was finally making progress. The engine was meant for the J-20 but after the project was launched in the early 2000s there were repeated delays. It took until July 2023 for the first J-20 to take off from a test airfield powered by two WS-15 engines.
That upgrade could mark the end of the J-20’s engine woes – the PLA was keen to point out that its Mighty Dragons now have supersonic cruise in a video from a drill conducted near Taiwan in May.
On Tuesday, J-20s were part of an aerial display at the Zhuhai air show while the two-seater variant, the J-20S, was on show on the ground.

Where are they?
The East China Sea – which connects to the Taiwan Strait – has been a priority region for the PLA’s most advanced fighter jets.
The earliest J-20 test flights were conducted over the East China Sea, and the first of the warplanes were deployed to squadrons under the Eastern Theatre Command, which oversees the area.
That is because the US military has more than 100 F-35s stationed at airbases in Japan and South Korea, while the Japanese Self-Defence Force has about 40 F-35s in service and another 100 on order.
By 2025, some 200 F-35s are expected to be in service in the region. The US also began permanently deploying F-22s to Okinawa in Japan in March.
Taiwan is the main reason. The self-ruled island has been the PLA’s No 1 target for 75 years, and J-20s from its Eastern Theatre Command have been patrolling near the island with increasing frequency since 2020.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China, to be brought under its control by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not see Taiwan as an independent state but many oppose any change to the status quo by force.

The first known encounter between a J-20 and an F-35 happened over the East China Sea, then US Pacific Air Forces commander Kenneth Wilsbach said in March 2022.
A few months later, the PLA Air Force confirmed its J-20s had “intercepted and identified foreign planes” over the East China Sea multiple times. It also released footage of J-20 pilots in encounters with “foreign air forces” and conducting flights near Taiwan.
J-20s were also deployed relatively early to the PLA’s Northern Theatre Command, which is responsible for the Korean peninsula as well as Russia and Mongolia. Squadrons based in Inner Mongolia and Hebei province were reportedly among the first to receive Mighty Dragons.
Since April 2022, the stealth fighters have also made appearances on Southern Theatre Command patrols over the South China Sea – a regional flashpoint where Beijing is involved in a number of territorial disputes with its neighbours.
On the western front, soon after a deadly clash between Chinese and Indian troops on their disputed border in June 2020, two J-20s were seen in commercial satellite images at Hotan in Xinjiang – the nearest airbase in China.
Satellite images taken in May this year showed at least six J-20s at Shigatse in Tibet, the Chinese airbase closest to the Doklam plateau where China and India had a protracted face-off in 2017.


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