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China's air force and navy now field roughly 2,250 dedicated combat aircraft, and it's "rapidly catching up to Western air forces," the Pentagon says.
Its release may coincide with the release of China's new aircraft carrier.
While Chinese activity and war preparation drills near the coast of Taiwan have been going on for a long time, there is growing concern that China might be preparing for a massive amphibious assault upon Taiwan.
The nascent Chinese carrier-launched 5th-generation capability may now fall well short of being able to rival the United States, yet the ability of China to project stealthy air attack power from the ocean is something the Pentagon is likely to take quite seriously.
J-7: In 1961, as tensions between the USSR and the PRC reached a fever pitch, the Soviets transferred blueprints and materials associated with its new MiG-21 interceptor to China. The offering represented an effort to bridge part of the gap, and suggest to China that cooperation between the Communist giants remained possible. The offering didn’t work. Sino-Soviet tensions continued to increase, nearly to the point of war in the late 1960s. The Chinese worked from the blueprints and other materials, and eventually produced the J-7, a virtual copy of the MiG-21. The Chinese eventually sold ...