Analysts warn: Chinese airforce might surpass the U.S. in East Asia

When India and Pakistan traded missile strikes over the weekend, military analysts spottet Pakistan using Chinese jets – and their capabilites now make experts sound the alarm.

Nuclear-armed nations bumped heads

The whole world held it’s breath during the weekend, when Pakistan and India struck each other with missile strikes.

The forgotten detail

It all ended with a ceasefire, but before this happened, military analysts noticed Pakistan allegedly using Chinese J-10C fighter jets to shoot down Indian planes.

Pakistani minister pleased with capabilities

After claiming to have shot down seveal Indian planes, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, told parliament that he had informed the Chinese of how pleased Pakistan was with the Chinese-made jets.

First time fighting

If the Pakistanis did indeed use the J-10C’s in the fight, it would mark the first time the Chinese jets have been used in combat, as well as the PL-15 missiles, they were carrying.

The ultimate test

According to The Guardian, Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), said that combat is the ultimate test of the capabilites of any new equipment.

Used against French planes

Andrew Small, a Berlin-based senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund points to the fact that India used French-made Rafale planes. This means that China now has valuable infomation on how their own weapons does against Western-made counterparts

A wake-up call

Shu Hsiao-Huang, an associate research fellow at the Taiwan defence ministry-linked Institute of National Defense and Security Research, told Bloomberg, that we might need to reasses the air combat abilities of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army).

Might surpass the U.S. in East Asia

He went as far as to warn of the possibility that the PLA might be approaching, or even surpassing, U.S air power in East Asia – and that could have massive geopolitical implications.

Threatening Taiwan

Chinas continues to threaten to annex Taiwan, and Beijing even has a goal of being cabable of executing a land and air invasion of Taiwan by 2027.

Not directly comparable, but …

India did not use American weapons systems during the weekend. However, Yun Sun, director of the China Programme at the Stimson Center, said that victory of the J-10 jets and PL-15 missilies should make people reconcider the balance of power in the event of China actually launching an invasion of Taiwan.