Two weeks after grainy photos proved the existence of China’s first stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20 has flown for the first time — just when U.S. Defense Secretary Bob Gates happens to be visiting the country. The debut flight over southwest China marks the beginning of a likely long and difficult testing phase for the large, angular airplane. It could be a decade or more before J-20s begin to roll out of Chinese factories in meaningful numbers.

But that doesn’t mean pundits, analysts and hawkish politicians aren’t already wringing their hands and warning of impending doom. That’s the same doom, it should be noted, that some observers predicted when Russia’s T-50 stealth prototype made its first flight a year ago.

In truth, any alarm over the J-20 is premature — note the Pentagon’s cool indifference. Right now, no one outside of the Chinese government knows what the J-20 is for, or what it’s capable of. The best anyone can do is guess, based on assumptions derived from a handful of digital snapshots.

Based on the J-20’s apparent size — around 70 feet from nose to tail, compared to just 60 feet for the F-22 Raptor — Defense Technology International editor Bill Sweetman proposed that the J-20 is “a bomber as much as, if not more than, a fighter.” The Chinese jet has “perhaps lower super-cruise performance and agility than an F-22, but with larger weapon bays and more fuel,” Sweetman added. “Super-cruise” is the ability to travel long distances at supersonic speed, something only the F-22 can really do, at the moment.

“Why would China need or want a short-range stealth aircraft?” Sweetman continued. “Any targets with defenses that call for that [stealth and speed] capability are a long way from the mainland.” Realistically, those targets could include Indian air defenses, Taiwanese airfields and U.S. Navy warships cruising the South China Sea.

It would make sense for Beijing to invest in a new, stealthy fighter-bomber. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force is already reasonably well-equipped with fresh new J-10 and J-11 fighters, rough equivalents of the F-16 and F-15, respectively. But the PLAAF’s main fighter-bomber is the older JH-7, a mediocre performer mostly incapable of launching modern guided weapons — and certainly doomed in the face of modern air defenses.

Taking the opposing view, Carlo Kopp and Peter Goon, partners in the Air Power Australia think-tank, argue that the J-20 is a fighter more than a bomber. Since they do not dispute the J-20’s apparent large size, they assume the Chinese plane is optimized for fast, high-altitude interception using long-range missiles, as opposed to close-range dogfighting. Kopp and Goon see waves of J-20s pounding through U.S., Taiwanese and allied defenses to target the vital support planes — E-3 AWACS, Rivet Joint spy planes, EC-130 radar jammers, etc. — that orbit behind the battle-lines.

By taking down these support forces, the J-20 could “significantly complicate if not close down air operations” for the United States in the Pacific. And forget using Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets or Air Force F-35A Joint Strike Fighters to stop the J-20s. Both American jets are “aerodynamically and kinematically quite inferior” to the Chinese stealth fighter, Kopp and Goon wrote.

Kopp and Goon have long advocated more F-22s as the only way to counter new Russian and Chinese fighters. Taking up this line, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney advocated Congress “insert funding for 12 F-22s into the 2011 budget” and keep buying the $150-million-a-copy jet indefinitely.

The Pentagon has ignored this advice, sticking with the planned total of just 187 Raptors and planning for an eventual purchase of more than 2,000 smaller, hopefully cheaper F-35s.

In doing so, the U.S. military brass seems to recognize several important truths. First, for all its apparent design strengths as a bomber or a fighter, the J-20 seems to rely on imported Russian engines — just as many other Chinese jets do. That gives Russia effective veto power over the J-20’s use in combat. All Moscow has to do is shut down the supply and support of engines to ground the J-20 and indeed most of the PLAAF.

Secondly, there are lots of ways to shoot down or otherwise disable Chinese fighters. Counting just American forces, there are: Air Force F-15s, F-16s, F-22s and (soon) F-35s; Navy and Marine F/A-18s and F-35s; Navy Aegis destroyers and cruisers; and Army surface-to-air missiles. But in a major shooting war, the Navy and Air Force wouldn’t wait for J-20s or other Chinese fighters to even take off. Cruise-missile-armed submarines and bombers would pound Chinese airfields; the Air Forces would take down Chinese satellites and thus blind PLAAF planners; American cyberattackers could disable Beijing’s command networks.

Of course, China could reverse any of these tactics and use them against the United States and its allies. But the point stands: Any Pacific shooting war would be a much more complex (and awful) affair than a simple showdown between jet fighters. The J-20 alone could not win that war any more than the F-22 could. Arguably, even fighting the war in the first place would represent a major defeat for the United States, China and the whole world.

A little context helps explain why the Pentagon remains calm over the whole J-20 issue — and everyone else should, too. We still don’t know what the J-20 really is, and how it might eventually, subtly shape the Pacific balance of power. All we can do now is wait, watch and keep working on our own fighters — all without panicking or spending ourselves into oblivion.

Video: Flightglobal.com

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