The Chinese have the Chengdu J-36 built by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation.
They have one unit that flew at that Chinese airshow back in December 2024. This aircraft is a prototype and is not expected to go into service until 2035 if all goes well.
The Shenyang J-50 also premiered at the same airshow but received no attention.
They also have one prototype. The United States also has 6th generation aircraft in development.
In reality it’s the Chinese that needs to play catchup… kudos to the Chinese for flying really slow and not crashing this time.
China is rapidly gaining ground with the US but I would say China is still on an average 10 years behind the West when it comes to Technology and Innovation
I say the West and not US because, the US doesn’t have a fully Indigenous Technology Domain on its own
Its technology domain covers US, UK, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Canada
This is the domain that is what Mainland China is up against
This is the domain against whom Mainland China is around 10 years behind in general today
What is astounding was that in 2015- China was 30 years behind
In ten years they have caught up by 20 years
So what are the key areas for China to fully be on par with the Western Domain :-
- University Research Infrastructure – Mainland China has 9 Universities with highest peer ranking, the Collective West has 42 combined with 33 in the US alone (10 Including HK)
- Computing Power – Mainland China is 2 Generations (6–7 years) on an average behind the Collective West as of 2025
- Lead Researchers – China has 168 Lead Researchers who have minimum 25 Citations and who have lead successful research in China, the Collective West have more than 400 (China had 26 in 2010 and the Collective West had 600 so this is a major progress for China)
- Fine Engineering & Precision Engineering – China is estimated to be 8–12 years behind the Collective West where Germany and Switzerland hold primacy
- Optics – China is estimated to be 20 years behind the Collective West in Optical and Optoelectronic technology where Germany and Japan hold primacy
So China is not fighting against the US
It is fighting against the entire collective West in the Technology War
Individually, China has more advances than any nation when it comes to core technology
However the Collective West have a slight edge over China because it is a consortium of 10–15 nations
What are Chinas advantages:-
- China has a Graduate Research Base of 3.25 Million , the entire collective West has 1.3 Million
- China has a Doctoral Research Base of 350,000 , the entire collective West has 200,000
- China has a R&D Budget of $ 3 Trillion Equivalent Parity Dollars against $ 1.7 Trillion for the collective West (6 EP Dollar = 1 US Dollar)
- China has 100% Access to Raw and Intermediate Materials thanks to Russia and Itself against only 63% for the collective West
So my guess is in the next 10 years – China will reach a parity with the Collective West which means China will be ahead of US when it comes to the two nations individually.
