Power Balance in the Pacific May Be Affected by China's Large, Stealthy New Fighter J-36
Posted on Jan 11, 2025 at 10:01 PM
The Chengdu J-36, a Chinese combat aircraft, utilises advancements in sensing, processing, and communications to establish regional dominance and potentially annex Taiwan by force while maintaining speed, agility, range, and stealth.
Primarily, the prototype J-36s, if capable of flying supersonically without afterburning, could enter and exit battles faster and more safely than conventional fighters and bombers, enhancing their stealth capabilities and allowing them to fly more missions.
The Strategic Role of the J-36 Aircraft
The J-36 aircraft's main weapon bays are large enough to carry large air-to-surface missiles, which can be launched against targets like airfields, aircraft carriers, and air defence batteries. With their speed and height, they can also throw inexpensive glide bombs farther than other aircraft.
Significantly, these missiles can engage aircraft at great ranges, including vital support units like tankers and air surveillance radar planes. Targeting data may come from other aircraft, ships, satellites, or ground sources.
Moreover, the J-36s, equipped with large passive and active sensors, can provide targeting data for other aircraft and ships, and command them using radio links that are difficult for enemies to detect, raising concerns about the West's prioritisation of torpedo boats over airborne cruisers.
China faces US-led air power in the Taiwan mission, with support from Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and South Korea. This can hinder China's maritime and amphibious operations, causing slower progress and higher casualties.
Therefore, China's counter-air capability, which includes surface-to-air weapons, fighters, air-base attacks, and the information realm, is crucial for its anti-access and area denial capabilities.
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The J-36: Revolutionising Air Superiority
The J-36 is a significant component of China's current force, with the Chengdu J-20 being the spearhead. The J-20 is fast and stealthy, but its weapon bays are limited to short-range and medium-range air-to-air weapons. The Xi'an H-6 bomber can launch attacks at air bases, but its effect is limited.
Besides, the J-36 aircraft is designed to combine speed, range, and stealth with internal loads, including long-range missiles and heavier air-to-surface missiles. It can support mass-precision attacks and autonomous weapons, with smaller outboard weapon bays for defensive and support weapons and large, transparent side apertures for passive warning.
Notably, Mach 1.8 supersonic cruise increases the sortie rate, potentially reducing missile engagement envelopes. The US considered supersonic strike aircraft in the 2000s, but funding was limited due to 9/11.
Further, the J-36 will be part of a family of systems, including the KJ-3000 airborne early warning and control system, based on the Xi'an Y-20 airlifter. China has produced five airborne radar systems since 2003, all based on active electronically scanned arrays (AESAs). The KJ-3000 can provide guidance-quality midcourse updates to missiles.
The J-36, a fifth-generation fighter, often called a sixth-generation fighter, is known for its speed, stealth, and ability to provide targeting data to other weapons. It serves as a command-and-control hub for other aircraft.
In closing, the 'generation' taxonomy of combat aircraft designs is misleading as they don't fit into discrete groups. Boeing F-15s and Sukhoi Su-34 are fighter-derived, while the J-36, larger and larger, is a separate category with no name.
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