http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1101&MainCatID=11&id=20101227000101
J-20 Jet Fighter Not Ready For a Decade: Military Analyst
Rumors of the Chengdu J-20, China's first fifth-generation stealth fighter, have been circulating for some time. But even if the prototype were successful, experts say it would take China longer than a decade to mass produce. Picture: China's third-generation fighter jets in a military drill. (File Photo/Xinhua)
Even if the Chengdu J-20, China's first stealth fighter jet prototype, proves successful, it will nevertheless take China more than a decade to manufacture the jet in numbers, argues David Axe, a military correspondent living in Washington DC.
Although China has developed domestic military technologies through reverse engineering, its quality control is still a matter for concern. Therefore, countries such as the United States need not worry that China may become capable of tipping the military balance in the Asia Pacific region overnight.
Over the Christmas weekend several eye-catching photos appeared on Chinese internet forums about China's national defense forces. However, it is beleived that pictures of a gigantic flying "heli-carrier" and submarines are the manipulative creations of imaginative Chinese photoshoppers.
But photos of the J-20 are very likely to be real, which suggests that China is already or almost able to create its own fifth-generation stealth fighter.
The Pentagon hasn't had a chance to comment on the J-20 photos but is likely to remain calm, Axe said, adding that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has previously insisted China will have "no fifth-generation aircraft by 2020."
"Considering China's quality-control problems with high technology, it could take a decade or more for the J-20 to appear in numbers that make any difference to the balance of power in the Pacific," Axe predicted.
"Gates might have been slightly off in his assessment of the Chinese air force, but probably not by much," he said.
