 |
| US F-22 on keft... Chinese J-20 on right |
China achieved its fifth-generation fighter jet by copying U.S. military tech, and it could maintain its pacing challenge for the American military if more isn’t done to safeguard sensitive weapons information, experts tell Fox News Digital.
"What we know is that because of the espionage efforts, [China’s] J-20 is more advanced than it otherwise would be, and that's the important point here," former Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Anderson said in an interview.
"They have profited greatly from their thievery over the years," he said. "They've put it to good use, and they've come up with an advanced fifth-generation fighter," noting that it’s "hard to say, short of actual combat," how the J-20 matches up against the U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter.
China began developing its J-20 in 2008 as part of a plan to design a new fighter that could compete with those in America. The plane first took flight in 2011, with its introduction to service in 2017.
In 2015, reports on the plane’s technology and capabilities started to notice similarities between it and U.S. fighter jets, with an Associated Press report stating that "some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the U.S. itself."
Now China has a fifth-generation stealth fighter, similar to the U.S. F-22, which has further closed what was once a virtually insurmountable gap between the two militaries in terms of technological capabilities – all thanks to continued intellectual property theft. The gap between U.S. and Chinese military technology has received renewed focus as tensions between the two nations continue to increase and officials continue to discuss a possible invasion of Taiwan, which might include a U.S. military response. READ MORE...
