On December 26, 2024, Mao Zedong’s birthday, the Chinese Communist Party announced a new stealth aircraft. The aircraft, designated J-36, reportedly combines stealth capabilities with a large payload, enabling both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions over long distances at supersonic speeds. These characteristics make it a major challenge for modern air defense systems.
China’s sixth-generation fighter jets are raising new concerns about Beijing’s progress in the ongoing arms race. This comes as the United States is reducing investment in next-generation air superiority in its latest defense budget. For U.S. military planners, this development significantly complicates operational scenarios, particularly in the Taiwan Strait, where China’s enhanced offensive anti-aircraft capabilities and the rapid deployment of additional intelligence and defense assets are required. becomes. These changes in capabilities highlight the need for the United States to reevaluate its aviation strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
On December 26, 2024, Mao Zedong’s birthday, the Chinese Communist Party announced a new stealth aircraft. The aircraft, designated J-36, reportedly combines stealth capabilities with a large payload, enabling both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions over long distances at supersonic speeds. These characteristics make it a major challenge for modern air defense systems.
China’s sixth-generation fighter jets are raising new concerns about Beijing’s progress in the ongoing arms race. This comes as the United States is reducing investment in next-generation air superiority in its latest defense budget. For U.S. military planners, this development significantly complicates operational scenarios, particularly in the Taiwan Strait, where China’s enhanced offensive anti-aircraft capabilities and the rapid deployment of additional intelligence and defense assets are required. becomes. These changes in capabilities highlight the need for the United States to reevaluate its aviation strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
The jet’s unveiling marks an important milestone in the evolving great power struggle between Washington and China. This new Cold War is increasingly defined by technological competition. The Chinese Communist Party is not just trying to monopolize core commercial technologies like electric cars and artificial intelligence. Beijing wants deeper civil-military fusion that will support China’s ability to replicate Cold War-era countervailing strategies where technological superiority tilted the military balance.
There is also reason to believe that China’s new aircraft is a signal to US President-elect Donald Trump and his administration to counter the threat of tariffs and replace military signals with economic national strategy. In reality, Beijing is increasingly running out of options to counter America’s new coercive diplomacy. Since last November’s U.S. presidential election, China has launched one of the world’s largest amphibious warships, conducted its largest naval operation in decades, and unveiled a new airborne intelligence and command and control platform. President Trump’s new foreign policy team needs to understand these measures for what they are. This means the country is negotiating from a position of weakness and is likely to increase risk-taking and brinkmanship. By integrating military preparedness with economic and diplomatic strategy, the United States can counter China’s technological strategy while reducing the risk of military conflict.
reveal new army Capabilities follow the logical pattern of national strategy. As outlined in a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, states often reveal new weapons of war in peacetime in lieu of more direct military conflict. By displaying military power, countries are betting that rivals will avoid escalation. Revealing new technologies is a form of forced bargaining between states.
President Trump has threatened tariffs and promised to stand up to China. J-36 can be seen as a forced counterweight. At the end of the day, threats to sell U.S. debt are empty and self-defeating, and every time China tries to manipulate trade and deny exports of critical minerals, all countries have a market incentive to seek alternative resources. It will produce.
In this context, the new aircraft represents a strategic weakness rather than an act of a superpower. There is also the possibility that China will continue to demonstrate its military prowess, which could increase risks for the Trump campaign. This continued show of force opens up the possibility of an international crisis or military conflict.
For example, China may continue to make large-scale cyber intrusions, as seen in recent attacks on U.S. communications infrastructure, the Treasury Department, and major logistics hubs. Alternatively, Beijing could demonstrate to Washington the limits of increased U.S. military pressure through technical signaling. In the same week that photos of China’s sixth-generation fighter jets were released to the world, additional videos of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) training with first-person drones similar to those widely used in Ukraine It was timely that it was published online.
Risk is manageable. As China’s economy stagnates and its population declines, the Trump administration must avoid pushing Beijing’s leaders further into a framework where risk-tolerant behavior seems reasonable. Hunting down a desperate actor is a risky gamble. The actor will either back off or lash out. Yes, the United States should stand up to China, but it should clearly be balanced by crisis diplomacy and engagement at multiple levels.
The opportunity is clear. Chinese President Xi Jinping has shown his mettle by unveiling a new fighter jet that only replicates proven American capabilities. Economic threats are more likely to influence Beijing’s decision-making than military threats. As the new Trump team takes office, it will need a comprehensive China strategy that overcomes the bureaucratic fragmentation in the existing U.S. national security enterprise. Rather than responding directly to each military signal, the Trump team should take a more indirect approach, combining economic and law enforcement efforts with efforts to support effective coordination between U.S. and allied forces and crisis management. A framework should be established.
First, the new The Trump administration should prioritize developing a comprehensive interagency plan to counter the Chinese Communist Party, which treats its military, although important, as an instrument of power rather than a primary tool. Based on this framework, the administration should introduce new economic and law enforcement tools that target China’s critical vulnerabilities.
From a military perspective, force posture and partner integration are likely to be more important than gaining an advantage through advanced military technology. The Trump campaign needs to reassure partners and allies while building deeper interoperability so that the U.S. military can fight side by side with democracies in the Indo-Pacific region. Strategy should focus on operational logistics, passing information and targeting data between allies, and building inventories of key weapons such as air-to-air and anti-ship missiles. Force posture and partner integration are as important as leveraging advanced military technology.
Second, the Trump administration needs to establish a planned and structured system for crisis management and diplomatic communication. To reduce the risk of unintended escalation, the U.S. government should prioritize building strong communication channels with the Chinese government. Regular military-to-military dialogue and crisis diplomacy mechanisms are essential to prevent misunderstandings and create opportunities to defuse potential flashpoints, such as the Taiwan Strait. As crises between the United States and China become more likely, not less, this dual-track approach, which balances deterrence and diplomacy, is necessary to responsibly manage an increasingly intense competition. extremely important.
Additionally, the Trump administration should incorporate crisis rehearsal into its strategic planning, mirroring the war planning and mission rehearsal exercises used by the military. Such training would expose vulnerabilities in national security enterprises’ operational approaches and increase readiness. A combination of proactive crisis communication and strategic exercises is key to navigating the challenges ahead.
Third, the Trump team needs to secure significant denial and defense measures to support its new China strategy. These measures should raise the costs of China’s brazen use of cyber operations and economic espionage, as outlined in the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s concept of layered deterrence. That could include tightening targets for advanced campaigns like Salt Typhoon and improving information sharing with the private sector to identify future threats.
By recognizing this moment as both a warning and an opportunity, the U.S. government can maintain its competitive edge without accidentally pushing Beijing into a dangerous escalation spiral. This is especially true given that PLA planners and ideologues believe they can control the crisis. That belief is not supported by history.
Yasir Attaran, Data Fellow at the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, contributed to this article.
