According to the American Military Observer magazine, 2022 is the most important year in the military field after the end of the Cold War. Although a large-scale war broke out in Russia and Ukraine during this year, it was not the most important year. What deserves the most attention is in East Asia. In 2022, China not only launched its third aircraft carrier , but its strength displayed at the air show proved that it is very fast in building a modern force that can rival the United States, while the modernization capabilities of the Russian military are declining. Although the West's attention has been focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as the United States gains more support from Japan and Australia, tensions between China and the United States, and even between China and NATO , have become increasingly prominent.
US media said that as the People's Liberation Army accelerates its modernization process, the US military has a sense of powerlessness about whether it can maintain its conventional advantages. Especially in the field of fighter aircraft , both China and the United States are developing the world's first batch of sixth-generation fighter aircraft , and there is not a big gap. Take the current fighter jets of the two countries as an example. China and the United States have gradually formed two schools in the world, especially in the field of fifth-generation fighter jets . China and the United States are the only countries in the world that can mass-produce them, and the next generation stealth bombers of the two countries are also expected to enter service almost simultaneously. At the same time, Russia can only produce a few aircraft per year. Other countries, such as South Korea, have only just launched their first fifth-generation aircraft.
US media stated that although Chinese-made fighter jets are already comparable in performance to U.S.-made fighter jets, the strength displayed by China’s fighter fleet in 2022 further illustrates its huge industrial and quantitative advantages. At present, except for the American F-35, the fastest production fighter jets in the world are all made in China, including the J-20 and the J-16, the two heavy fighter aircraft . You know, the proportion of heavy-duty fighters deployed in China's fighter fleet is the highest in the world, far exceeding that of the United States. However, the 2022 Zhuhai Air Show showed that China may have more heavy-duty fighters than the United States, NATO and Russia combined.
According to US media estimates, China has deployed about 300 J-16 and more than 200 J-20, as well as nearly 350 J-11, 50 Carrier-based J-15, 98 Russian-made Su-30s and 24 Su-35s, and a few old Russian-made Su-27s, all of which are heavy-duty fighter jets, totaling 1,000 to 1,100, more than half of which are cutting-edge fighter jets produced in the past ten years. The size of its heavy-duty fighter fleet exceeds that of any country in the world. In contrast, the U.S. military only deploys about 510 heavy-duty fighter jets, of which only about 12 F-15EX are the latest production. The rest are all F-15 models produced before and after the end of the Cold War. Its latest one was produced in 2001. There are also about 185 F-22, which has been equipped for more than ten years.
Although the F-22 is a fifth-generation fighter, it still uses avionics equipment from the 1990s, while the J-20 at the same level uses avionics equipment from the 2010s. The avionics gap between the two is nearly 20 years. In general, the average age of China's heavy fighter fleet is 15 to 20 years younger than that of the United States, and its performance is about the same.
Except for the U.S. Air Force, other NATO countries are not equipped with any heavy-duty fighter jets. For example, the United Kingdom and Italy are equipped with Eurofighter Typhoons and F-35 fighter jets. Germany is equipped with Typhoon fighter jets. Although established European countries such as Britain, Germany, and Italy can jointly develop fighter jets, the cost of heavy fighter jets is still too high for them, and it is not as cost-effective as developing medium-sized fighter jets. Although France ambitiously built a Mirage 4000 that was comparable to the F-15 heavy fighter during the Cold War, the plan was aborted due to high costs and almost no national purchases.
Therefore, only China, the United States and Russia are able to develop and produce heavy-duty fighter jets in the world. Although the Russian fighter fleet also has a high proportion of heavy-duty fighter jets, due to its limited defense budget, the number of its equipment is still relatively small. US media estimate that Russia has deployed about 400 heavy fighter jets, including Su-35, Su-30SM/SM2 and Su-27, with about 110 to 130 each. In addition, its naval aviation also has about 20 Su-33 and about 10 Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jets. Therefore, the total number of heavy fighter jets owned by Russia, the United States and its NATO countries is only just over 900, which is far lower than China.
The heavy fighter has many advantages. Compared with other lighter fighters, it has more weapons and a longer range, which means that its multi-purpose combat capabilities are more prominent. And because it uses two large thrust engines, it has better flight performance. Crucially, it is equipped with a more powerful sensor suite, which means that its air combat capabilities are stronger than other levels of fighters. Of course, due to their relatively high operating and manufacturing costs, they are typically deployed in smaller numbers.
For the United States and its allies, the lack of a sufficient number of heavy fighter jets is a serious security issue. One of the most direct consequences is that after the United States announced that it would retire the F-15 at the Okinawa Air Force Base, there was no other new heavy fighter to replace it. Although the U.S. military temporarily deployed F-22 and F-16 here, the range of these two fighters lags far behind the F-15 fighter. The Okinawa base is the most advanced base for the United States to contain China's rise. Here it has to face China's J-20 stealth fighter .
The J-20 is a long-range heavy fighter. Its internal fuel capacity is 1.5 times that of the F-22. Secondly, with the same external auxiliary fuel tank , the J-20's combat radius is as high as 2,000 kilometers, while the F-22's is less than 1,100 kilometers. This means that once a conflict occurs in China's offshore waters, the F-22 will be unable to fight against the J-20. In comparison, the F-15 has a combat radius of 2,000 kilometers when it has an external auxiliary fuel tank. Although its stealth is not as good as that of the J-20, at least it can keep up with the J-20 in peacetime, while the F-22 cannot keep up at all.
Due to the special geographical location of the Western Pacific, conflicts between China and the United States will mainly take the form of sea and air battles. Since the US military lacks heavy fighter jets, it will lack long-range combat capabilities, so the US military does not have an advantage in air combat here. In this regard, the US media believes that in the Sino-US conflict, the only chance for the US military to gain the upper hand is to develop NGAG sixth-generation fighter jets in advance and form a quantitative gap with China. However, the cost of NGAG will reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and the US military needs to replace more than 500 heavy-duty fighter jets, which is an unbearable burden for the United States. In comparison, the cost of Chinese fighter jets has always been very low, and its purchasing power is several times that of the United States, so the only opportunity for the United States is relatively slim.
