But the same can’t be said for Chinese media. As the Council on Foreign Relations put it in 2017:

“China has one of the world’s most restrictive media environments, relying on censorship to control information in the news, online, and on social media.”

“Media Censorship in China” by Beina Xu and Eleanor Albert for the Council on Foreign Relations, Feb. 17, 2018

While China’s constitution actually does include a passage meant to guarantee free speech, the Chinese government has not been at all bashful about how strictly it controls narratives within the public sphere. In 2017 alone, Chinese officials imprisoned at least 38 journalists for reporting stories outside the confines of approved narratives. The issue came to the forefront of the public’s attention a few years later when stories about Chinese journalists being imprisoned for reporting on the early days of the Covid outbreak in Wuhan reached Western media.

In fact, in 2016, Chinese President Xi Xinping said the quiet part out loud, when he toured the nation’s top three state-run media outlets and addressed those working within them.

“The media run by the party and the government are the propaganda fronts and must have the party as their family name,” Xi said in his address. “All the work by the party’s media must reflect the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority, and safeguard the party’s unity. They must love the party, protect the party, and closely align themselves with the party leadership in thought, politics and action.”

200 J-20S BUILT DOESN’T MEAN 200 J-20S THAT CAN FIGHT

In other words, while reports out of China indicate that there have likely been more than 200 J-20s built, there is currently no publicly available information regarding how many of those J-20s are actually suitable for the fight. Likewise, we have no publicly disclosed readiness rates, no in-depth reporting on technical setbacks, no concrete figures on budget projections or overruns, and no real independently verifiable information regarding these jets’ performance.

In June 2021, the South China Morning Post reported that China’s 150 J-20s at the time were deployed across four aviation brigades: two in training bases in Inner Mongolia and Hebei, and two more in China’s eastern and northern theatre commands. All of these installations are on China’s interior, suggesting these jets are being used for a combination of training and the essential work of establishing a stealth-centric air combat doctrine. While a logical progression for the J-20 program, this also means issues with readiness, technical setbacks, and other concerns are easy to keep muddled within training schedules and policy discussions.

And of course, as we’ve already determined, Chinese media outlets would be forbidden from reporting any such problem, even if one were to become apparent.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA TRANSPARENCY IN MILITARY ACQUISITIONS

You can find stories about F-22 Raptors losing to other fighters, like the Eurofighter Typhoon or A-10 Warthog, in training exercises. These notional losses are, in truth, a good thing. The rules of engagement for these exercises are often intentionally stacked against the superior platform in order to ensure both teams get something of value out of the training. Simply saying go and having the Raptors wipe out an entire formation of Typhoons from 60 miles away without ever being detected doesn’t help the Raptor or Typhoon pilots get better… But forcing these jets to engage at closer range, where the Raptor’s stealth advantage is compromised, gives both aircraft, their pilots, and their ground crews valuable experience fighting in difficult circumstances.

You won’t find any stories about the J-20 losing to China’s J-10, or specifics about how it performed in large-scale exercises against Russian-sourced Su-35s. You won’t find stories about the J-20 getting taken out by anything, despite the overwhelming consensus that the aircraft is less capable than the Raptor.

This allows for only three possibilities:

1. China’s testing and training apparatus doesn’t include air combat between dissimilar aircraft. We know this isn’t the case because dissimilar combat has been reported by official Chinese state media outlets, with the J-20, unsurprisingly, emerging victorious in every interaction regardless of circumstances or competition. This suggests that instead…
2. China’s testing and training apparatus is incompetent. Failures in training aren’t only important for crew, but for military planners as well. They need to know the precise outside limits of a platform to fund improvements and adequately plan for complex combat operations. If the J-20 is never put into a failing position, it hinders pilot training, aircraft performance, and strategic planning.
3. China simply doesn’t allow reports of J-20 failures to reach the media. This is the most likely option, as China has taken pains to model its modernized military after Western forces and unclassified intelligence reports suggest China has a robust testing enterprise for other systems like hypersonic weapons. As such, China’s J-20 has almost certainly suffered failures and shortcomings that go unreported.

So, to put a fine point on this discussion: there may have been over 200 J-20 fighters built, but that doesn’t mean there are 200 that can fight. Real numbers could potentially be as low as in the dozens, and we’d have no way of knowing for sure.

The fact of the matter is, the United States has 34 more years of experience operating and maintaining in-service stealth aircraft and has the clear advantage in terms of material science and avionics integration. As such, there’s a viable argument to be made that American stealth fighters may actually have higher readiness rates than their Chinese counterparts.

THE BLOCK 4 F-35 WILL HELP THE UNITED STATES RETAIN ITS STEALTH FIGHTER EDGE

Of course, it’s important to remember that the F-22 may be the fighter tasked with securing air superiority in the American arsenal, but it’s not the only stealth fighter American forces operate.

The F-35 Lightning II, while not designed for the air superiority role, remains a highly competent fighter that not only exists in large numbers already but is amid a massive $15 billion upgrade that will dramatically increase its combat capability. This upgrade, which is being incorporated into F-35 production lines as we speak, will come in two stages: Tech Refresh 3 (currently underway), and then Block 4.

Tech Refresh 3 (TR3) includes a significant upgrade to computing power and onboard digital storage, allowing the sensor-fusing F-35 the ability to incorporate dramatic improvements to its avionics systems along with a laundry list of other improvements, some of which remain classified. Block 4 F-35s will be powered by updated engines, offering improved performance and efficiency, carry new even more powerful AN/APG-85 AESA radars, a next-generation infrared distributed aperture system, a massive increase in electronic warfare capability, and a bevy of new kinetic and digital weapon systems.

While these new F-35s will still lag behind the J-20 in terms of hot-rod performance, the F-35 remains far stealthier, and will now have an even larger technological advantage in terms of detection ranges, situational awareness, and weapons at its disposal. But perhaps most important of all, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has stated that 300 of these Block 4 F-35s will each be given a pair of AI-enabled drone wingmen to fly in support, offering a massive increase in sensor range and combat capacity over previous fighters and bridging the notional gap between 5th and 6th generation fighters.

Readiness rates for the F-35 are also a significant concern, however. Due to issues with concurrent production (building F-35s before testing was complete) and readiness rates ranging from 54 to 65% in recent years, the United States may only have as few as 150 to 170 F-35s available for the fight at any given time today.

It’s important to note that the United States would likely not be alone in a conflict with China, and while European allies may not play as active a role in deterring Chinese aggression in the Pacific, Japan’s fleets of 105 F-35As and 42 F-35Bs, along with South Korea’s current fleet of 40 more F-35s can help pick up the slack within the region.

CHINA’S J-35, AMERICA’S NGAD, F/A-XX AND BEYOND

With J-20 development ongoing, China has recently signaled a renewed effort to take the F-35-based FC-31 that Chinese aircraft manufacturer Shenyang originally designed for the export market, and convert it into a carrier-capable platform currently dubbed the J-35. Just as the J-20 was designed with stolen design data from the F-35 and F-22, this new J-35 also looks like it could have rolled off of Lockheed Martin’s bargain bin. Intellectual property theft means little in a firefight, and with China now cruising toward having two stealth fighters in active production versus America’s one, the J-35 doesn’t need to overmatch the F-35 in technology to pose a significant threat in terms of volume.

Put simply, it’s not a question of whether the F-35 is better than the J-35… it’s a question of whether one F-35 is better than two J-35s. When you start to consider the availability of airframes in the Pacific, this is the troubling combat calculus U.S. planners may soon be forced to contend with.