China Revs Up J-20 Production, Extends Attack Range With Tanker Aircraft

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) The People’s Liberation Army – Air Force is moving quickly to expand its 5th-gen reach throughout the Pacific theater in a massive way by demonstrating that its new YU-20 tanker aircraft can refuel J-20s in flight.

A Chinese video cited in the Chinese government-backed Global Times newspaper reportedly shows the J-20 being refueled in the air by the YU-20 tankers.

“The YU-20 can conduct aerial refueling for warplanes including the J-20, the J-16 and the J-10C, and such aerial refueling exercises have been carried out multiple times in high-altitude plateau regions and above the sea,” the Chinese newspaper said.

This development is of great significance given that China has a known deficit in the area of sea-launched 5th-generation aircraft. Unlike the US Navy, which is armed with both Carrier-launched F-35Cs and amphib-launched F-35Bs, the Chinese Navy has little to no ability to launch 5th-generation stealth air power from the ocean. Chinese J-20s are land-launched airplanes, and while the PLA-Navy is fast developing the carrier-launched J-31 stealth fighter, they do not exist in sufficient numbers. Perhaps most of all, the Chinese lack a Marine Corps F-35B-like vertical-take-off-and-landing 5th-generation fighter capable of operating from a Chinese amphibious assault ship. This means the US Navy, not to mention Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia, could potentially mount an overwhelming force of F-35s for operations in the Pacific, potentially placing China at a significant air-superiority deficit.

However, if China’s fast-emerging J-20, which is now being mass produced in greater numbers, can be successfully refueled in the air, it might place much greater areas of the Pacific expanse at risk of being attacked by Chinese 5th-Generation stealth air power. While Taiwan is roughly 100 miles from mainland China and arguably within reach of land-launched J-20s, an ability to refuel the aircraft would more than double their range throughout the region and potentially place areas near and around Japan and islands in the South China Sea at risk of Chinese air attack.

However, a large YU-20 tanker converted from some of China’s emerging Y-20 cargo planes is certainly not a stealthy aircraft and would likely be vulnerable to attack from the air and surface throughout parts of the Pacific. US Navy and allied ship-fired anti-aircraft weapons and of course ship-launched 5th-generation stealth aircraft would certainly be capable of tracking and destroying large Chinese Yu-20s. This would place China’s 5th-generation stealth fighter attack at great risk of being destroyed, slowed down or stopped by US and allied forces in the Pacific.