Zhuhai's Air Show has always been a venue for surprises, usually first-time showings of advanced Chinese military hardware.
China's pathologically secretive defense industry normally shows nothing official of its weapons programs to anyone, which makes the biennial Zhuhai expo the only chance to see what its weapons makers have been up to.
Much has been written in the past few years about China's defense sector developing increasingly more capable weapons systems that approach the capability of their U.S. and European analogues.
Some Chinese weapons, such as a full range of anti-ship and air-to-surface missiles, seem to show that its military -- the People's Liberation Army (PLA) -- is equipped to challenge U.S. Navy carrier battle groups and potentially deny the U.S. the ability to operate in certain areas of the Pacific. But questions remain about how battle-ready the PLA is and whether it can function in a modern, network-centric warfare environment.
Battlefield autonomy
Today's battlefield operates on the premise that autonomy should be pushed down to the lowest level -- even down to the man in the field -- because time is of the essence. Getting inside of the enemy's "decision loop" is the key to victory. But, giving individual units the ability to make their own tactical decisions without their orders being delivered from several layers up the chain of command is an anathema to the "control uber alles" mentality of the Chinese leadership.
In terms of new weapons, the number one attraction at Zhuhai this year was the new Shenyang FC-31 fighter. It has generated a good deal of excitement as it's the first time a new Chinese military aircraft has been unveiled while still in the early stages of development -- we usually have to wait until after they start serving in the PLA's air force.
The FC-31 is designed to look like a stealth fighter aircraft in the class of the American Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It is also the second, but smaller, stealth-type design to be developed by China. The FC-31's "Big Brother," the Chengdu J-20, first flew in January 2011 but has been shrouded in secrecy ever since.
The FC-31 "looks" stealthy and its shape mimics that of the F-35 in some respects. But it is impossible to tell just how successful the Shenyang design team has been in developing an aircraft with a low radar cross section without knowing the materials used, the placement of the engines inside the aircraft, and how well the heat signature from the engines has been suppressed by the design of the exhaust nozzle section.
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