PLA Air Force news, pics and videos

Totoro said:

Sustaining a jump in production of 160 combat planes for a few years, just to go down soon thereafter is senseless. Either that production is going to stay, as the cold war is perceived as a real threat - or if there is no perception of threat then there'd be no hike in production at all.

So... either the rumor is just some mistranslation (or is not correct) or we will see a prolonged, decade long at least, effort to increase the size of chinese air forces. Which is then likely to stay at the new size of possibly 3000+ combat airframes. And since somehow I don't see US not reacting to such a build up and since US would be likely to increase its arsenal further - there's really no end in sight when it comes to increases. We might be looking at 4000 or higher numbers for chinese air forces by 2050 or so. Wild speculation, i know. But so is everything about the initial rumor.

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Is there any doubt that China faces a New Cold War with the USA?

The only question is how large the military buildup will be.

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Looking to the past, we saw Chinese military spending double from 1960-1965 after the Sino-Soviet Split when Communist fraternity turned into Nationalist rivalry. Suppose that was to happen again?

China military spending would grow from $300 Billion in 2020 to $600 Billion in 2025
As a share of GDP, it is an increase from 2% today to roughly 3% of GDP.
That is still comfortably below the 3.5%-4% that the USA or Russia have routinely spent over the past 20 years.

So what could an extra $300 Billion buy every year?
And that is before taking into account that China has lower costs for personnel and equipment.

For example, the US currently spends $418 Billion outside of personnel costs.
So I reckon the Chinese military in 2025 could be matching whatever the US spends outside of personnel costs.

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In such a scenario, a Chinese Air Force with 3000 or 4000 combat airframes is entirely feasible.

Totoro said:

Absolutely. If J-XY ends up being some true middle class fighter, then indeed cutting J10 production in favor of that JXY may be sensible. Of course, that'd leave CAC without a huge part of its cake. So either J-20 production (including any possible strike variant) would have to be increased by quite a bit, or CAC would have to get various other projects (like drones?) At that point, the existing J10 fighters might be enough in numbers. The urgency to replace the earliest J10s would not exist. Some could be even replaced by JXY and the rest might be, at a slower pace, replaced by some tentative new single engined fighter. But we're talking already about a timeframe past the year 2030, possibly even past 2035.

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Maybe the future 6th generation design, but also just potentially expanded J-20 production I think. CAC turning out J-20 like SAC turned out flankers may be a reasonable amount of work.

Totoro said:

If anything should compete for same resources it should be J20 and J16. Of course, politics may see it differently, so SAC and CAC may be guaranteed to get the same piece of financial pie.

Which is actually one of many explanations for a possible j16 production hike. With CAC having j10 and j20 production, SAC may've gotten more orders to even things out.

Certainly killing all/most of J10 production just so j20 could be chugging at respectable but quite ordinary 30 airframes per year is nonsensical. Smaller planes are always in some need, there's just not always the need for a twin engine, high operating costs plane for all missions.

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I don't think anyone is suggesting stopping J-10 production wholesale without any commensurate benefit elsewhere -- but IMO it would make a lot of sense to wind down J-10 production within the next 5 years or less to shift the entire line to J-20s.
By that time I imagine the expertise and reservoir of tooling and experience of successively building more and more J-20s over the previous few years would enable a larger scale expansion of J-20 production.

4/4+ gen aircraft production will eventually stop imo, and the question is when is the best time to make the change to all 5th gen production.

Over on CDF I've suggested ending J-10 production before 2025 and ending Flanker production before 2030.
J-10 production capacity will be transferred to augment J-20 production, and Flanker production capacity will be transformed to augment J-XY production (and this is assuming a land based J-XY variant is developed as a medium weight 5th gen land based fighter as well)

AndrewS said:

Is there any doubt that China faces a New Cold War with the USA?

The only question is how large the military buildup will be.

---

Looking to the past, we saw Chinese military spending double from 1960-1965 after the Sino-Soviet Split when Communist fraternity turned into Nationalist rivalry. Suppose that was to happen again?

China military spending would grow from $300 Billion in 2020 to $600 Billion in 2025
As a share of GDP, it is an increase from 2% today to roughly 3% of GDP.
That is still comfortably below the 3.5%-4% that the USA or Russia have routinely spent over the past 20 years.

So what could an extra $300 Billion buy every year?
And that is before taking into account that China has lower costs for personnel and equipment.

For example, the US currently spends $418 Billion outside of personnel costs.
So I reckon the Chinese military in 2025 could be matching whatever the US spends outside of personnel costs.

---

In such a scenario, a Chinese Air Force with 3000 or 4000 combat airframes is entirely feasible.

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China's official military budget for 2020 is 1.268 trillion yuan ($182 billion USD) and GDP is projected to be 100 trillion yuan ($14.4 trillion USD) if GDP growth rate is 1% for 2020.

This would mean China's military budget is just under 1.3% of GDP which it was consistently at for the last 2 decades. Western sources tend to have a higher numbers to account for higher purchasing power and they are estimates.
Refer to footnote 49


China has quite a conservative military budget relative to its economic weight due to current policies. It has a similar budget ratio as Canada and Germany.

It is building up its military but it's to mainly to make up for the capability they should have built years ago. I don't believe we are seeing a true military build up or militarization from China right now. The US is worried about China's purchasing power as by PPP China ($27.8 trillion) has surpassed US ($20.3 trillion). If China's is able to master domestic production of a particular military hardware, the assumption is that it would be at a lower cost.


I see it as unlikely for China to drastically increase official military spending as a percentage of gdp beyond 2% for the foreseeable future and without a major war. This is because i think China will still follow the policy of making fast iterations to progress technologically rather than focus on building up a large amount of military assets.

Found the source of the 30--60--20 rumor.

siegecrossbow said:

Found the source of the 30--60--20 rumor.

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Posting the picture here so we have a record of it.

One thing Eastern Pendulum didn’t report from the original post is that no one wants the FC-31... yet.

siegecrossbow said:

One thing Eastern Pendulum didn’t report from the original post is that no one wants the FC-31... yet.

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Not sure if it's referring to FC-31 or J-XY/J-35 though.

SilentObserver said:

I see it as unlikely for China to drastically increase official military spending as a percentage of gdp beyond 2% for the foreseeable future and without a major war. This is because i think China will still follow the policy of making fast iterations to progress technologically rather than focus on building up a large amount of military assets.

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Doesn't matter, there's massive political upheaval right now. We are potentially foreseeing the end of American power, and Trump's line has been to try to take down China to preserve the American world system when the Europeans are already deserting because of his unilateralism and fascism.

Note that this year, the Chinese cut all government budgets except for the military one, expanding military funding by 6%, which when GDP growth and inflation are factored in, exceed GDP growth parity.

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The main problem with Chinese military spending boosts right now, though, is that the tech isn't ready. I wouldn't consider the J-20 adequate for its role; i.e, it'd need to be able to reliably 2:1 F-35s when the stealth paradigm seems to favor IR stealth and large weapons payloads, something the F-35 has and the J-20 apparently lacks.

In most other technologies, China would have a half generation gap between itself and the United States, and the US is beginning to drive up its military R&D complex with powerful next / next-half generation equipment.

The implication is that if China were to attempt to seek military parity with the United States, even in East Asia, it would have to spend a lot more since it'd have to buy either larger platforms (J-20 vs F-35), buy equipment in more numerous set-ups (no real example), or seek asymmetric technological advantages (Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles).

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But the question is still, does China still have a choice as to whether to focus on economy and technological development, or is it now or never? In the latter case, even if China has to spend more to obtain or maintain military parity with the United States, it must act just to maintain its strategic position.

^guys, come on. that's off topic. pls take to an appropriate thread.