China on Tuesday debuted its latest model of stealth fighter jet and foreshadowed an ambitious pipeline of advanced drones, as Beijing displayed its determination to match American military might by investing heavily in the latest tech and forging ever-closer bonds with partners like Russia.

The maiden flight demonstration of the J-35A, a “fifth generation” fighter designed to evade radar detection and attack enemy targets at supersonic speeds, was the main attraction on the opening day of the Zhuhai air show on Tuesday.

Millions turned in to state broadcaster CCTV’s live stream of the aircraft performing aerial acrobatics against a gray sky.

This year’s gathering of leading Chinese defense contractors has been celebrated by Chinese state media as a milestone in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitious plans to forge a world-class fighting force by 2050.

To achieve that goal, Xi has pushed the country’s defense industry to invest heavily in cutting-edge technologies.

Chinese manufacturers have churned out huge numbers of ships, warplanes, missiles and drones to enforce Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims - and send a warning to the United States and its allies.

“Zhuhai certainly showcases China’s growing tech capabilities to potential adversaries, and, of course, the U.S. is on the top of that list,” said Collin Koh, a defense expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Also on display were China’s efforts to present itself as an alternative to the United States when it comes to arms and as a reliable security partner for nations that share Beijing’s hostility toward the U.S.-led military alliance network.

“By holding an air show of such proportion with such high publicity, China is definitely trying to [reach out to] like-minded countries in the ‘global south’ that are tired of western sanctions and don’t trust western technology,” Koh said.

The J-35A, China’s answer to Lockheed Martin’s F-35, was the main attraction in a vast array of drones, missiles and aircraft displayed by China’s leading aerospace and aviation companies in the biennial exhibition that runs until Nov. 17. It is smaller and nimbler than the heavier J-20 stealth fighters already deployed by the Chinese military.

But a secondary draw for attendees was the first overseas demonstration of Russia’s Su-57, the most advanced stealth fighter in the Russian military, which was flown at the airshow by one of Russia’s most experienced pilots.

The display of friendliness in the face of western efforts to isolate Moscow was underscored by the attendance of Sergei Shoigu, head of Russia’s national security council and a confidant of President Vladimir Putin.

In a meeting with Shoigu on Tuesday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, said “the more external challenges we face, the more resolute we must be in uniting to defend our common interests,” according to an official Chinese readout.

Shoigu agreed the two countries shared similar approaches to key international and regional issues. “Russia-China relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation have reached the highest level in history,” he said, according to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency.

Shoigu personally coming to see China’s advanced weaponry showed appetite for closer military-industrial ties, Wang Xiaoquan, a Russia expert at the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told local media at the air show.

It “sent a signal to the outside world that no matter how the international situation changes, China and Russia will maintain a high level of mutual trust and military cooperation,” he said.

The air show often blurs propaganda with real announcements - many models on display remain under development - but it is a rare chance for military analysts to track progress in the People’s Liberation Army’s modernization drive.

Experts pore over images in search of clues that China is making progress toward its goal to build an advantage over adversaries in a potential conflict in the South China Sea or over Taiwan, the island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory.

This year’s fanfare over the purported operational readiness of the J-35A, as well as multiple announcements of upgrades and new systems, suggests Beijing wants to project confidence about its goals despite expanding American export restrictions that limit access to advanced western technology, analysts said.

Its deployment makes China the only country other than the United States capable of using multiple stealth warplanes with capabilities that match the most advanced jets used by the U.S. Air Force, Chinese experts claimed in state media reports.

A decade in development, the fighter jet, which was produced by state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China, shares multiple features with its American forerunner. (In 2016, a Chinese businessman pleaded guilty to working with Chinese defense contractors to steal F-35 designs from the United States.)

Chinese officials have offered only limited descriptions of the J-35A’s engines and other capabilities, but military analysts have described it as a combat aircraft adaptable to multiple roles in a conflict.

The designation of J-35A reflects how the model is “aimed at” the F-35 and it will be “a piece of cake” to overpower the American model in one-on-one combat, Song Xinzhi, a nationalist military commentator, claimed in an interview with local media.

Variants based on the same platform can be deployed from Chinese air bases or from the one of the Chinese navy’s aircraft carriers, Chinese state media reported.

This year was also the first time the Zhuhai air show featured a section dedicated to China’s growing fleet of unmanned aircraft and ships, including a 10-ton unmanned aerial vehicle used to deploy swarms of smaller drones. Also on display was a drone vessel with a range of 4,000 nautical miles dubbed the “killer whale” by Chinese media.

Chinese media broadcast videos of the CH-7, a large, high-altitude, long-range stealth drone, rolling down a runway. This could be an even more significant development if it turns out to be a real reflection of battle readiness, said Justin Bronk, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense think tank.

Unlike high-end aircraft, which need highly trained pilots, drones can be deployed “as fast as you can build them … and China is very good at manufacturing things quickly in quantity,” Bronk said.

Having a long-range, hard-to-detect drone would give China another way to “hold U.S. or Taiwanese bases at risk in addition to the large arsenal of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles that it already has,” he said.

In recent years, Zhuhai has also become an important venue for Chinese defense contractors to drum up international business from close partners like Pakistan.

The J-35A was originally developed as an export model and Pakistan’s air force in January announced plans to acquire an earlier version of the fighter jet.

China is still a relatively small player in the international arms trade. It accounted for 5.8 percent of global exports from 2019 to 2023 compared to the 42 percent share of the United States, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a group that tracks global security and arms control.

But the war in Ukraine has created an opening for Chinese defense contractors to expand into international markets previously dominated by Russian suppliers that are now struggling to keep up with domestic demand.

Even the appearance of the Su-57 at Zhuhai seemed to underscore China’s arrival as the senior partner, reversing decades of Chinese reliance on Russian military hardware.

On social media, Chinese military enthusiasts were quick to mock the Russian fighter jet’s clunky design and supposedly inferior stealth capabilities compared to the J-35A. Chinese media noted that a Russian-designed engine used in earlier versions of the J-35 had been swapped out for China’s homemade WS-19.

China appears to be trying to have it both ways, Koh said: providing symbolic support to Moscow by featuring the Su-57, even as its defense contractors exploit the vacuum left by Russian defense contractors focusing on the war in Ukraine.

“The Chinese threw out all those fully fledged new platforms. It was overwhelming enough to make sure Russia doesn’t overshadow them,” he said.

previous coverage

• China congratulates Trump as ties set to enter new phase
• How China built a $50 billion military stronghold in the South China Sea
• Russian, Chinese pilots still busy but make fewer challenges to Japanese airspace

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