Video: How good is China’s new stealth fighter?

The competition with China intensifies and a lot of it is focused on airpower and developing the platforms and technology that will prevail in a potential conflict.

This month, China officially unveiled the nation’s second domestically developed 5th-generation fighter, known officially as the J-35. This new twin-engine stealth fighter, which comes in both runway and carrier-capable variants, is meant to bolster China’s rapidly expanding fleets of larger J-20 stealth fighters, and maybe even to end America’s global monopoly on exporting stealth aircraft.

China is already flying the J-20, and the addition of the J-35 aims to expand its airpower capabilities. However, the development of the two stealth fighter jets doesn’t say a lot about Chinese ingenuity and aerospace capabilities. If you look closely, you will see that the J-20 resembles the F-22 Raptor a lot, and the J-35 is fiendishly similar to the F-35. China, after all, has a proven tract record of stealing from other countries are replicating their works.

“These new stealth fighter jets can give China a massive boost and power projection capabilities in the Pacific as they are designed to operate off of the nation’s forthcoming catapult-equipped class 003 supercarriers, dramatically complicating the combat calculus for American planners focused on deterring Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and beyond,” Alex Hollings, Sandboxx News’ Editor-in-Chief and host of AirPower, said in a recent video.

To learn more about the J-35 and its capabilities, make sure to watch our video above.

Feature Image: Shenyang FC-31 at the Zhuhai Airshow 2014, November 2014. (Photo by WC/Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons)