In the last thirty years, China has made major strides in nearly all fields of manufacturing. As the economy expanded, progress was made in nearly all industries, though unevenly at first. As China moved towards market integration with the global economy, a combination of foreign capital as well as domestic investments have provided with the manufacturing and industrial foundations for a modern state. In the first twenty years, most of this progress was seen primarily in labor-intensive and low-value fields such as textile manufaturing. During this stage, wealth accumulation and infastructure investments set up the stage for Chinese industries to move up the value-chain. In the last ten years, China has made strides in more capital-intensive sectors such as auto-manufacturing and shpibuiding that perhaps is even more impressive than the nation's metoeric economic rise as whole. China's move up the value-chain can also be seen in electronics, where it may stand to rival the global giants of Japan and Korea in the next half decade.
In parallel, the nation has also embarked on an amibitious program of military modernization. Although uneven across fields, for the most part I am sure we can agree that China is within half to one full generation behind Western nations in most systems and platform today.
With China's thriving civilian shipbuilding, auto, electronic, and commercial space sectors, I am very confident in China's ability to continue to catch up in fields such as radar, naval, ground-vehicles, and missile technology over the next decade and a half. However, in the field of aviation China may find itself confronted with a more challenging task. Sure the J-10 was a monumental step for China, but the reality is the Chinese aviation industry is not in any better shape than it was 30 years ago. Sure, China has the ability to manufacture some parts now thanks to deals with Boeing and Airbus, but in terms of manufacturing capacity as well as tech level, it is light years behind Europe and the United States.
With China's current economic development first approach, any military field that doesn't see growth in its civilian counterparts will be left behind. While China may field a variety of new naval and ground platforms, develop a capable LACM and better SAMs, and upgrade the avionics and missiles on its current aircraft fleet in the next decade, we might be in for dissapointment when it comes to the J-XX/XXJ projects. China suppposedly began its next-gen fighter project in the late nineties- yet not even a full-scale mockup has been shown. Not only have we yet to see the Super-10, current J-10s are still dependent on Russian engines.
Here are some of the thoughts I have gathered after viewing the Chinese Commercial Aviation thread, the Zhuhai Airshow thread, and some research on the side. What do you guys think?
