US F-35 and Chinese J-20 fighter jets had close encounter over East China Sea: US general
- Several such encounters amid high bilateral tensions in closing days of Trump presidency, source close to Chinese military tells the Post
- US Pacific Air Forces commander says Americans ‘relatively impressed’ with J-20 stealth fighter
Advanced Chinese and American fighter jets have had several encounters in the East China Sea, a source close to Beijing’s military told the Post, saying it reflected the high level of tensions between the two nations.
US Pacific Air Forces commander Kenneth Wilsbach did not mention the time of the encounter, but the source said such close contact became more frequent in the second half of 2020, as tensions escalated between Beijing and Washington under the cloud of a likely “October surprise” in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
In an online discussion with military aviation experts – posted on the YouTube channel of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies on Tuesday – Wilsbach also highlighted the US Air Force’s observation of the “air superiority” of the J-20s during the encounters.
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“They are flying it [J-20s] pretty well. We recently had – I wouldn’t call it an engagement – where we got relatively close to the J-20s along with our F-35s in the East China Sea,” Wilsbach said in the video, adding that the US pilots had been “relatively impressed” with the command and control associated with the J-20.
“It’s still too early to tell exactly what they intend to do with [the J-20] – whether it’s going to be more like an F-35 … that is primarily an air superiority fighter that has an air-to-ground capability.”
Wilsbach also highlighted the “significant role” played by China’s KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft in terms of “capability for long-range fires”.
“Beijing sent KJ-500 and more J-20s to conduct long-range patrols of the East China Sea in March 2020, when the PLA raised combat alert levels to prevent the American side from staging surprise attacks as the Covid-19 pandemic raged on the mainland,” the source added.
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The Pentagon later denied speculation over an “October surprise”, with Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley calling his Chinese counterpart Li Zuocheng twice – in October 2020 and January 2021 – to dispel any suspicions.
The stealth fighter jets are equipped with the powerful PL-15E missile, the advanced variant of China’s PL-15 long-range air-to-air missiles, supported by its KJ-500 early-warning aircraft.
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“Some of their very long range air-to-air missiles are aided by that KJ-500,” Wilsbach said. “Being able to interrupt that kill chain is something that interests me greatly.”
China has launched more than 50 J-20s since starting mass production in 2020. But Wilsbach said the US Air Force still held absolute deterrence powers in terms of air superiority in the Asia-Pacific because the Pentagon had deployed more than 200 F-35s to the region.
Zhou Chenming, a researcher at the Yuan Wang military think tank in Beijing, said Wilsbach’s observation on the J-20s and KJ-500s indicated that the US Air Force had engaged with PLA pilots many times.
“The key role of the joint operation of J-20s and KJ-500s is to stop the US Air Force from accessing the East China Sea in the event of a contingency if the PLA decides to attack Taiwan,” Zhou said.
The three-panel active electronically scanned array radar of the early-warning aircraft aimed to detect the approach of stealth fighter jets like the F-35s, he explained.
“Another function of the J-20s is to ruin any attempts for Taiwan independence,” Zhou said, but asserted that they would only be used as a deterrent to prevent the self-ruled island from making any moves for legal independence or changing the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
