Dragon's Eye View

[davidgillon]

Aircraft design drivers and geo-politics, not my normal thing, so I'd only suggest clicking to see beyond the cut if my thoughts on China's new stealth fighter are likely to interest you.

China has just rather startled the aviation world by flying the J-20 stealth fighter for the first time. It was known that it was in development, but no one predicted it was anywhere near first flight until about a month ago. Beyond the rather embarrassing intelligence foul-up, a lot of the discussion is focussing around the design of the aircraft, which appears to be a large interceptor, optimised for high speed and long range rather than agility. The US-centric nature of a lot of the aviation discussion boards means discussion of the design drivers for the J-20 has largely focussed on the Taiwan Straits scenario – with US forces from Kadena, Guam and the Pacific Fleet coming to the aid of Taiwan in the event of an invasion from the mainland. In that scenario the assumption is that the J-20 is designed to penetrate past Taiwan to engage the AWACS and tanker aircraft that are vital to the US intervention. 

I don’t doubt for a moment that operations against Taiwan and any US support to it played a significant part in the analysis that led to the design, but my own thinking is that focussing solely on this one scenario is committing yourself to a worm’s eye view of China’s concerns and therefore of the drivers behind the design. We won't get anywhere by analysing Chinese decisions based on US thinking, we need to look at the situation from the other side of the divide and try to understand Chinese strategic thinking. The US focuses on Taiwan as the logical conflict point between it and China, but Taiwan is merely the first among a series of potential Chinese concerns and the J-20 will need to address as many of these as possible.

The first of these doesn't even need us to step outside Chinese borders, China is a huge country, 4000Km North-South, 4,500Km East-West. Faced with a similar situation Russia produced a series of large interceptor fighters such as the Tu 128 Fiddler and the MiG 31 Foxhound, suitable for carrying out their mission over a huge swathe of terrain. Internal geography alone might explain some of the J-20's size, particularly if numbers end up not matching tasking (as always!). 

Then there are the external concerns. Even in a Taiwan Straits scenario China has to worry about a US threat originating not just from Guam and Kadena and PacFlt CVBGs, but strategic assets staging out of Diego Garcia, the Gulf States and possibly even Bagram and Kandahar to penetrate China’s undeveloped western hinterland. A confrontation with Russia needs fighters operating in the far north of China and into Siberia. Conflict with India would need the PLAAF to project air power across the Himalayas if they are not to be peripheral to the conflict and the scale of Indian fighter acquisition plans mean we need to start thinking in terms of a serious regional arms race between it and China. Air cover for a conflict in the Spratleys with Vietnam or another regional power would need a 1000Km operational radius from bases in Hainan (which also gets you to Ho Chi Mihn City), the Paracels and Hanoi are closer, but still need 500Km+ from the same bases.

Then there are the Sino-friendly powers/client states like Burma, Pakistan and Iran, and hangers-on like North Korea, who might drag them into an external conflict. A Korean flare-up might need Chinese forces to operate right across the Korean peninsula and as far offshore as Japan, both requiring a 1000Km combat radius. Operations in support of Pakistan would face all the difficulties of operations against India (the most likely Pakistani opponent anyway), but more so. Burma can probably offer forward basing for the PLAAF if necessary, but operations against any aggressor are still likely to need long range -- even Kolkata at India's easternmost tip is around 1000Km from Rangoon. Meanwhile Iran, a big country in its own right (hmm, Iranian J-20s would really set the cat amongst the pigeons...) is just close enough to be able to realistically call on China, but far enough away to be out of range for anything but long range forces staging forward to operate from Iranian airfields.

Mission concept dominates aircraft design, national strategic concerns dominate mission concepts. Understanding the J-20 needs us to start from Chinese strategic concerns and follow the logical consequences of those when seen from the Chinese viewpoint.