China tests sixth-gen fighter, escalating US tech rivalry

China flight-tests its invisible sixth-generation fighter

China has put what could be its first sixth-generation fighter in the air. Leaked images show an aircraft in full flight which, according to the narrative accompanying the leak, marks a qualitative leap in Chinese combat aviation. The announcement does not come in isolation: it trinc three decades of copying, adapting, and improving foreign technology, at a time when Washington and Beijing eye each other warily in the Pacific. The question hanging over the matter is not whether the plane flies, but what its flight signifies.

From technological piracy to homegrown engineering

For years, China's defense industry relied on what has been called reverse engineering. The most repeated argument is that Beijing obtained documentation for the US F-35 and, within a few years, not only replicated it but improved upon it. Hence the string of nicknames: the Chinese F-35, the Chinese F-16, the Chinese Hawkeye, the Chinese C-17. Accusations of industrial espionage are old and have never stopped circulating.

The most obvious counterargument comes from those who ask why, if the ingenuity was stolen, Western manufacturers did not showcase it earlier. The response from the other side is uncomfortable: either the theft is false, or Chinese intelligence services are formidable. In any case, the result is the same: China no longer waits for the West to sell it anything.

The history of Chinese junk that no longer holds up

Skepticism has grounds. According to circulating accounts, Chinese tanks sold in Africa have suffered mechanical failures and electrocutions, with some claiming their loader takes half an hour to fire. Chinese frigates sold to Pakistan also fare poorly. The conclusion drawn is that Chinese material is cheap and bad, and that what is shown is the good stuff.

In contrast, the comparison with Japan is devastating. Around 1930, everything cheap and low-quality in the world was Japanese. That stage of development corresponds to China in 1990. Honda motorcycles went from being sold as toys in US garden centers in 1960 to dominating the global market within two decades. Some argue that Chinese engineering is now two and a half levels above any other.

The Pacific encirclement and China's response

China is not developing this fighter in a vacuum. It is surrounded by three rings: the closest includes Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; the next passes through the Philippines and Indonesia; the third stretches from Australia to the Pacific islands. Technically, it is a besieged nation, though this is rarely stated. In response, Beijing deploys two strategies: the Silk Belt via rail, to become independent of maritime transport, and the recovery of the first ring that suffocates it.

The problem is that Russia is not China. Russia only aspires to its independence, and maintains it. China aspires to global economic, commercial, and technological supremacy, and already leads in many areas. The difference matters: Moscow plays not to lose; Beijing plays to win.

European dependence and the warning from Ukraine

The warning for Europe is twofold. On one hand, most advanced ships in the Spanish Navy use high-tech US weaponry, and every time they want to use it, they must ask permission from Washington. Operational independence is zero. On the other, the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that a country without its own aviation can bomb from the air with air-to-ground missiles without the adversary shooting down planes or attacking airfields. Whoever dominates the sky, even with planes others cannot see, sets the pace.

The underlying discussion is not whether the Chinese fighter is pretty. It is whether the West continues to trust that technological superiority is an acquired right. The F-22 flew in 2005. Since then, the F-35 has been sold as the great allied program, with national deliveries slowing down while production shifts toward export. The Navy and Marines are modernizing their SuperHornets while waiting for the sixth generation. Meanwhile, everyone else watches China fly.

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The most reasonable prediction is that this fighter will not change the military balance on its own. But every Chinese prototype that takes off reduces the Western margin for error. And that margin, today, is scarce.