China’s push for military aircraft supremacy

On August 23, 2023September 26, 2025 By Akhil KadidalIn Journalism2 Comments

This post is a diversion from this site’s traditional focus on the Second World War. It delves into a subject that is a part of my day job – military aviation journalism in the Indo-Pacific. As the above masthead reveals, covering the Chinese military is a major part of my work. This post includes aircraft art that I created during the course of my reporting.

These pieces will show the strides made by Beijing in its efforts to outpace the combat air capabilities of not just its Asian neighbors, but also also Russia and the US-led Western Alliance.

China is at the heart of a growing and increasingly divisive great power competition in the Indo-Pacific – not unlike the situation created by the early Shōwa-era Japanese in the years before World War II. Officially, China aims to have a world-class military by 2050. It also aims to displace the current western world order led by the United States to emerge as the foundation of a new global economic bloc.

To achieve this, the Chinese communist party under Xi Jinping is wielding ancient national mythos. These are powerful narratives which hold China as being the center of the world, the seat of invention and economy – a position that China believes it was deprived off by foreign countries in the “century of humiliation” between the first opium war and World War II.

The Chinese communist party now holds that China is on the cusp of a rebirth. At the same time, the Chinese politburo’s ambition has little regard for a multipolar future where the US-led system has an equal place. To assure future Chinese domination, the country’s authoritarian regime has backed a policy of unprecedented military development.

Gone are the days when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force could be regarded as a mass of aging and qualitatively inferior Soviet-era combat aircraft. Two decades of heightened industrial espionage, reverse-engineering and the aping of external technological designs have propelled genuine Chinese technological breakthroughs, particularly in military engines, airframe design and avionics.

The result is the PLA air force has updated its air power capabilities several times in the last 10 years. For example, it’s airborne electronic warfare (EW) and electronic intelligence capabilities (ELINT) have approached the third generation in the span of 15 years.

In February 2023, leaked images revealed that the Chinese were undertaking flight trials of a new and improved version of their aging Shaanxi Aircraft Corporation (SAIC) KJ-200 ‘Moth’ airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft.

The new variant appears to be a multisensory platform that can not only be used for airborne early warning (AEW) operations, but also for intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance. (An abbreviated “free” version of my article can be found here: https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/china-assessing-improved-kj-200-special-mission-aircraft)

China is also trying to rival the United States and the western alliance in fifth-generation stealth aircraft technology. As its new catapult-enabled third aircraft carrier, Fujian, takes shape, the PLA appears to be pushing for the induction of the navalized version of its Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) J-31/FC-31 Gyrfalcon fifth-generation stealth fighter.

This new version appears to be a counterpart of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and has the potential Chinese designation of J-35. It was even redesigned to incorporate features found on the F-35 such a forward-hinged clamshell canopy. (Article here, but behind a paywall: https://customer.janes.com/display/BSP_52168-JDW)

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A Paper Trail: My Work in Newspapers

On August 20, 2016May 19, 2024 By Akhil KadidalIn Journalism2 Comments

Talk about newspapers these days and people’s eyes seem to glaze over. Papers belong to the era of one’s grandfather, a bygone age when trees were felled, wood smashed into paper pulp and printed to carry day-old news. They are quaint, and their total extinction forestalled only through the bewildering, continued existence of the likes of the New York Times, the WSJ, The Guardian, Le Monde and all those venerable broadsheets which still shape national policies the world over.

In my incarnation as a journalist, I mostly describe myself as a newspaperman (new media man/person doesn’t sound right). But why would I attribute myself as being part of an archaic order that is being gradually hacked to oblivion by television and the internet? Back in 2007, when I was graduating from college in Texas, the national consensus of journalism was that it was dead as we knew it — in the form of newspapers and magazines anyway. Pundits proclaimed the rise of the citizen journalist, the neighborhood scribe who stalked the streets, taking to online forums to report on what he or she saw, replacing traditional reporting, and triggering the demise of the old order. These scribes, the pundits said, would give rise to Social Journalism — a transparent and community driven form of news gathering whose results would be bared online. And here I was with my newly minted BA in English Lit and Mass Comm facing a potential hostile population of one billion “citizen” journalists – the odds and economics of which sounded untenable and outright insane.

But what the pundits, with their prognostications failed to understand was that journalism is a trained profession, much like how lawyers are trained, albeit without the longevity of law school. Imagine if suddenly one day, the populace declared lawyers were obsolete, and proclaimed the rise of the citizen-lawyer? Well, we’ve all heard the one about the man who acted as his own counsel…

Print journalism is inherently a white collar profession, with an intricate, mental tool-set, but which over the last 25 years has been arguably eroded through the interference of media barons, incompetent publishers, corporate advertising, and quisling, piss-poor editorialists and pressure to “sex up” the news. At its core, print journalism seeks only to illuminate, explain and inform, at the cost of near anonymity. Nobody every really became famous merely working in papers, except for maybe Jimmy Breslin, Gay Talese and others whose names escape me… I rest my case. But mostly the work is intended to help create a more informed public and an electorate. The same can be achieved in new media, but newspapers possess an undeniable legitimacy. When Edward Snowden decided to leak the NSA files to the world, for example, there is a reason why he chose newspapers to leak to and not to TV news or online outlets.

We convince ourselves that free news is good even if it happens to be inferior because all we need are the basic facts. A case in the point is the BBC which partly uses a “robot,” an advanced algorithm to edit and format some of its stories. Which seems to explain many of the articles have incomplete or replicated facts. Although the system has improved, there was a time when stories fail to ask and answer the most basic of questions. And if we can’t get our news for free, we fall back on online news outlets with grandiose titles and strange urls, and social media, that great echo chamber. The end result is an entire generation of people who cannot tell the difference between reporting and propaganda, op-ed and news pieces, fact and hyperbole, press and prostitution.

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Somalia, 3 October 1993

On May 1, 2011May 14, 2024 By Akhil KadidalIn Journalism10 Comments

-Click to see higher resolution –

This illustration was created using Google’s SketchUp 8 and Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop. I have always been fascinated by the techniques used by the larger newspaper organizations to create some of their art. Matthew Erickson did the original Blackhawk down graphic for the Philadelphia Inquirer to accompany Mark Bowden’s news reports. These days he is the deputy graphics director at The New York Times. His blog can be found at: http://www.ericson.net/content/ – But expect no revelation of secrets, apps used or an explanation of how the NY Times does its art. But he does have a small collection of interesting graphics.

A note on the software:

I discovered SketchUp yesterday and although it is ground breaking for its ability to generate 3D objects, I think it is really clumsy. Simple things that most people take for granted in illustrator (such as holding down the space bar to allow the mouse to move objects), are not easily accessible. I almost gave up in frustration this afternoon trying to build the base image for this picture. Still, SketchUp’s 3D quick rendering beats the painful drawing of multi-sided objects in Adobe Illustrator. I don’t know how Google does it. It’s large staff of engineers obviously have no clue how to make a user-friendly product but they certainly know their stuff.

Photographs

I decided to include this section for those seeking a little more information on the fiasco that was Somalia.

Parade at UNOSOM HQ at Mogadishu. The Americans, from the 10th Mountain Division, are led by a Pakistani Sergeant of Arms from PAKBAT (Pakistan Battalion).

To the Somalis, American troops might as well have been an army from another planet with their technological superiority. But the Somalis were also quick to realize that this dependence on technology left US Forces open to attack. Consequently, Warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid ordered his militia to concentrate future attacks against the Blackhawks — accurately perceived as the weakest links in the opposition’s formidable array of military power. Here, a Marine LCAC-22 hovercraft unloads its cargo in Somalia.

(LEFT) US Marines gather at the airport for protection duties. The armored vehicles in the background are LAV-25s, license-produced from Steyr-Diamler-Puch of Austria. (RIGHT) USMC PFC Anthony Mehia of New Orleans stands guard behind a barricade of sandbags at the US Embassy in Mogadishu. Note the field radio and the fully-loaded M249 5.56mm SAW light machine-gun — a weapon designed and originally made in Belgium.

(LEFT) Reminiscent of activities in the South Pacific during World War II, US Navy Seabeas work at the derelict Mogadishu airport. Here, a motor grader from the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 40 (based out of Hueneme, CA) works on improving an access road beside the runway. (RIGHT) When a few Somali Technicals mounting 12.7mm Russian DShk heavy machine guns were spotted cruising the streets, locals called in the Marines who promptly arrived with a couple of LAV-25s, one armed with a TOW rocket launcher, to restore law and order. (Photo: USMC)

(LEFT) By 1993, the Somali air force looked like this – it’s entire compliment of aircraft reduced to rusting jets, beyond salvage. This photo is of a duo of Hawker Hunter T.77’s at Baidoa in January 1993. (United Nations) (RIGHT) The Mogadishu airport, busy once again, after it became a center of operations for the UN and Task Force Ranger. (Department of Defense)

Hearts and Minds. (LEFT) A Marine PR officer hands out leaflets to local Somalis. (RIGHT) A Marine holding a Somali baby waits in turn for US Naval doctors to examine the child.

(LEFT) US Marines move from house to house in search of illegal weapons. The man climbing through the window is armed with some heavy ordnance in the form of an 84mm M136 AT4 anti-tank bazooka — a weapon first designed and manufactured in Sweden. Although the Marines spent their fair share of time in Somalia, attempting to restore peace and thwarting the warring clans, their activities were overshadowed by the operations of Delta Force and the Rangers who arrived much later. Incidentally, one of the US Marines who took part in these early operations was Warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid’s own US-educated son, Hussein Farrah, who in 1996, took over leadership of the Habr Gadr clan after the death of his father.

(RIGHT) PFC Chris Boone of the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain stands guard at the Somali village of Belet Uen. (US Army)

Men from the 10th Mountain ride Somali-style through the streets of Kismayu, as part of a convoy composed of Americans and Belgians.

(LEFT) Canadians from No. 3 Commando, Canadian Parachute Regiment walk a patrol at Belet Uen. In the fore is a radioman. His weapon is an American-made M16A2. Faced with repeated thieving at their supply base, a group of irate Canadian paratroopers caught the suspected thief — a Somali, whom they subsequently beat and killed in custody. As news of the death spread, a horrified Canadian government resorted to the radical step of disbanding the entire regiment — a unit which had been in existence since World War II.

(RIGHT) An Italian Bersaglieri infantryman from the elite San Marco Brigade interacts with Somalis at a local feeding station outside Mogadishu. As members of the former colonial power, Italian troops often overlooked or did little to halt acts of Somali crime, which infuriated other members of the UN mission. The trooper is armed with a BM59 7.62mm assault rifle, an Italian modification of the venerable American Garand rifle of WWII.

(LEFT) Members of the 10th Mountain confer with a Pakistani Captain whose troops have suffered an ambush. (US Army) (RIGHT) 10th Mountain troops have an impromptu meeting with Belgian paratroopers (wearing maroon berets). Many in the 10th Mountain were also qualified airborne troops, so they had something in common with the Paras. Here they discuss tactics with the Belgians who had been in-country longer. (US Army)

(LEFT) A 10th Mountain trooper, armed with an M16A2 and M203 grenade launcher attachment patrols a Somali village. (RIGHT) 10th Mountain soldiers unload heavy ammunition at their advanced base at Baidoa while a Belgian Para looks on.

(LEFT) An Australian infantryman watches as a food truck arrives at a feeding station. The trooper is armed with a distinctive, plastic-cased 5.56mm Steyr Aug assault rifle (another import from Austria). (Right) A view from the Ranger-occupied section of the airfield, looking out at the dispersal.

A Blackhawk prepares to dust-off. Most in-country Blackhawks were equipped with the External Stores Support System (ESSS), allowing them to carry extra fuel (as in this case) or rockets. (US Army)

(LEFT) A US Marine Patrol travels through the bullet-scarred streets of Mogadishu. (RIGHT) A 10th Mountain security patrol takes a breather in the Somali bush. The radio operator carries his equipment in an olive-drab Alice Pack, whose uncomfortable original strapping which must have played havoc with his patience. (US Army)

(LEFT) Marines wait by the rear entrance of their AAV “Amtrack,” anxious at the noise of gunfire crackling in a nearby neighborhood. (RIGHT) Ranger Keni Thomas flashes a broad smile for the camera. Keni, one of the combatants in the Battle of Mogadishu (or the “Day of the Rangers” as it is known in Somalia) later made prominent appearances in PBS Frontline and History Channel documentaries on the battle.

(LEFT) The US Embassy at Mogadishu, abandoned during the Somali Civil War that toppled the Somali Dictator, Siad Barre, but later reclaimed by the American contingent of the United Nations. Here, tents of the Quick Reaction Force (QRF), primarily comprising the 2nd Bn, 14th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division, appear within the embassy compound. Although the building itself was badly gutted, the compound and the area beyond the embassy formed the core of QRF headquarters. (Department of Defense)

(RIGHT) The scarred, hollowed-out remains of the Villa Somalia, home to Somali dictator, Siyad Barre, during his regime. When Barre was driven out of Mogadishu in January 1991, rebel troops ransacked the hilltop villa, discovering extensive surveillance footage and miles of magnetic tape recordings of telephone conversations. (Department of Defense)

Members of Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Rangers pose for the camera in Somalia. (Department of Defense)

(LEFT) The Olympic Hotel, across the street from the target building. (Department of Defense) (RIGHT) The only picture snapped during the October 3rd battle was this image, showing Captain Steele’s column under attack. (US Army)

Michael Durant’s Super 6-4. (LEFT) Durant (far right) with his crew. (RIGHT) The wreck of Super 6-4. (Both photos: Department of Defense)

(LEFT) A freed Michael Durant is carried by stretcher to an aircraft destined for Landstuhl, Germany. The two men gripping the far side of the stretcher are Delta Force operators. Malnourished and desperate for familiar food, Durant promptly ordered a large Pepperoni pizza with extra cheese while still en-route. The pizza appeared after he landed, hand delivered by US Air Force crewmen who also picked up the tab — unfortunately the doctors forbade Durant from tasting a single slice, owing to his liquid diet.

At the hospital, Durant was reunited with his family and treated for his injuries (including a fractured right cheek, a broken thigh, a shrapnel wound to his arm and a compression fracture of the lower vertebrae). (Department of Defense)

(RIGHT) Ranger survivors of the Battle for Mogadishu gather in memory of their lost comrades on October 5th. (Department of Defense)

(LEFT) Aerial reconnaissance photograph of Mogadishu, on the day of the raid, 3 October 1993. (Department of Defense) (RIGHT) A United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) map of Mogadishu. Although this map is from 2007, it shows the location of the Olympic Hotel and other important landmarks. (Note — File size is 3.8 mbs) (UNHCR)