John Bolton accuses China of stealing F-35 technology to make a stealth fighter. Is this what he was talking about?
- US National Security Adviser recently said an unnamed Chinese fighter ‘looks a lot like the F-35 … because it is the F-35’
- The PLA’s only active stealth fighter the J-20 looks rather different to its US counterpart, but the FC-31 prototype may be closer to the mark
US National Security Adviser John Bolton recently accused China of stealing US technology to make a stealth fighter, a charge Beijing has denied.
On a visit to Ukraine last week, Bolton said an unnamed fifth-generation aircraft “looks a lot like the F-35, that’s because it is the F-35. They just stole it”.
At present China’s only active stealth fighter, the J-20 or Mighty Dragon, looks very different to the F-35 because it has two nose canards – which are not found on any modern US fighters – and it is larger and around 50 per cent heavier.
However, Bolton might have had another fighter in mind – the Shenyang FC-31 Gyrfalcon, which is still in the prototype phase.
The FC-31 is made by the Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute, a branch of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China.