China's Bold Power Play With Sixth-Generation Fighters

In the last week of 2024, China took the world by surprise by flying two new combat aircraft at low altitude from where their photographs were flashed around the world. There is considerable speculation that both are prototypes of sixth-generation fighters which could mark a major breakthrough for the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The next day, largely unnoticed by the media, China also launched a huge Type 076 amphibious assault ship that can operate as a light aircraft carrier. Around the same time, the Chinese also made a test flight of their new early warning aircraft, namely the KJ-3000, powered by a new and advanced jet engine – WS-20.

The Chinese achievement can be gauged by the fact that the reportedly sixth-generation fighter comes just four years after the US flew the first prototype of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter in 2020. Note that the first completely Chinese origin fighter, the J-20, made its first flight in 2011 and entered service in 2017.

The Chinese economy may be facing cyclical and structural weaknesses right now, but that seems to have no effect on its continuing military buildup. As part of this, the PLA has taken up a major effort towards modernisation and reform to improve its ability to prosecute war in all its domains through a joint force capable of land, air, sea, cyberspace, and space operations.

The Pentagon report says that all four elements of the PLA – Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force – are upgrading their equipment and training techniques at a feverish pace. The PLA Ground Forces are well on its way to master what the Americans call the “joint fires” capability, involving the coordinated and integrated use of all elements of air, maritime land, cyberspace, and special forces.

The PLA Navy is already the numerically largest navy in the world with over 370 ships and submarines. An example of its all-round development is seen in its launch of the Type 076 amphibious assault ship which features an electromagnetic catapult to launch advanced unmanned aircraft. Some 70 percent of the PLA Navy is modern, and besides warships, it has been making its supply ships to boost the ability of its growing fleet of aircraft carriers, warships, and submarines to operate far from home.

The PLA Air Force, too, is moving fast to catch up with the US. This is evident from the surprise fielding of the prototypes of as many as two sixth or near-sixth-generation fighters last week.

The PLA Rocket Force is developing its long-range missile capability. This is linked to its ongoing project of creating three vast missile silos field near Mongolia, which can be used to house some 300 missiles for both nuclear and conventionally armed missiles.

In addition to this, the Chinese are working hard to reshape the support structures for the PLA. A major development here is the dismantling of the Strategic Support Force set up in 2015. It has been broken down into three components – the Aerospace Force, the Cyberspace Force, and the Information Support Force – all directly under the Central Military Commission (CMC) which is effectively China’s defence ministry.

Another supporting element is the Joint Logistic Support Force, which is trying the break the civil-military silos, to ensure it can deliver products and services to the PLA constituents in quick time and through war and peace.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the Pentagon report is its effective abandonment of its long-standing policy of minimum deterrence. This could be a prelude to a shift in its No First Use (NFU) policy.

The Chinese, according to the Pentagon report, added 100 nuclear warheads to their 500 strong arsenals in the past year and are on track to deploy more than 1,000 warheads by 2030. The Chinese are probably aiming at a 1,500-warhead arsenal by 2035 which would bring them to par with the US and Russia who deploy 1,550 strategic nuclear weapons as per treaty.  

But, besides expanding its nuclear arsenal, the PLA is also developing advanced nuclear delivery systems like Hypersonic Glide Vehicles and a Fractional Orbital Bombardment (FOB) system. The development ground- and space-based missile early warning systems suggests that China no longer adopts an NFU posture.

But these are only the nuts and bolts of the PLA. The heart of the new and modernised force are its concepts of “intelligentised warfare” that it is working towards.

This is created by integrating advanced technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) in military operations, along with big data analytics and autonomous systems. An important and not quite well understood part of this is cognitive warfare aimed at influencing the thought processes of enemy decision-makers and the public. The concept relies on big data analytics and algorithms to inform military strategies and provide real-time analysis of battlefield developments.

While we have the capacity of defending our northern border, the outcome of a larger conflict can be problematic, especially since our Air Force numbers are declining precipitously. On the nuclear front, we earlier shared the concept of minimum deterrence and NFU with China. But now that Beijing is moving away from this – expanding its arsenal and developing new delivery systems – it opens up a major vulnerability for India.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion article, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)