The largest East Asian state, the People’s Republic of China, has ambitious plans to go beyond the regional power and play a key role in the global political arena.
After successful measures to build ground and naval forces, Beijing began to modernize the air force, realizing plans to create a strategic aerospace component of world-class national armed forces.
The plan submitted by the Ministry of Defense of China includes three stages.
The first step, designed for the period up to 2020, envisages the improvement of the strategic aviation fleet, the optimization of its structure of construction and management. As a result, strategic aviation must be able to use it in both defensive and offensive operations. The basis of the aircraft fleet, as the Chinese generals see it, will be fourth-generation strategic bombers.
The second stage (from 2020 to 2035) includes a complete renewal of the aviation fleet with the transition to the operation of aircraft of the fifth and subsequent generations.
At the final third stage, which is scheduled to be completed by the middle of the century, the Chinese armed forces should have the most modern aerospace forces, surpassing any similar types of foreign states in their combat capabilities.
The rapid development of the Chinese armed forces leaves no doubt that the East Asian neighbor of Russia in the near future will secure for itself a dominant position in aerospace.
