J-31, Y-20 Make Debuts at Much Expanded China Airshow

China’s J-31 stealth fighter is making its public debut at Airshow China in Zhuhai this week. Also on show for the first time in public is the Y-20 airlifter. In the halls, the China Aerospace Science Industrial Corp (Casic) is showing a plethora of previously unseen missiles—some of them completely new designs while others are derivatives of existing models. Avic is showing a model of a four-engine turboprop airlifter in a configuration similar to the A400M. There are also a number of new surface-to-air missile systems on display.

The show has almost doubled in size since the 2012 edition, attributable solely to a massive influx in displays of military systems. Several non-aerospace firms are showing products such as armored vehicles, infantry weapons, rocket launchers and mine-clearing systems, all items that are not usually associated with an aerospace expo. However, there seems to be no other exhibition event in China that provides an opportunity to display such wares.

Russian defense firms maintained a surprisingly low profile. Sanctions on Russia have seriously reduced the country’s ability to export weaponry, and the PRC is now one of the few nations left with no restrictions on buying from Moscow. But there was no visible Russian campaign to engage the Chinese in a larger number of defense deals, and apart from a Sukhoi Su-35 strike fighter, there was almost no new Russian weaponry on display to attract new PRC business. The high-profile Su-35 sale to China was supposed to have been confirmed by the time of the airshow, but Russian officials report that the two sides are still mired in negotiations.

The scope of the PRC’s efforts to design and build new weapon systems is impressive, but there appears to be little in the way of a coherent strategy. Having three or more designs for one item of weaponry is useful in some ways, “but it begins to look more like a jobs program than a rational procurement plan,” said one western analyst at this year’s Zhuhai show.

“There is a lot to see here at this show,” he said. “But one has to ask where is all of this going and what is the long-term objective?”