US 'Impressed' By China's J-20 Stealth Fighter After F-35s Have Close Encounter

A top U.S. Air Force officer has revealed how American Lockheed Martin F-35s had a close encounter with China’s J-20 stealth fighters recently in the East China Sea.

In a discussion with military aviation experts of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, the video of which is available on its YouTube channel, Gen Kenneth S. Wilsbach, Commander of the Pacific Air Forces, said the encounter left the U.S. "impressed."

"They are flying it [J-20s] pretty well. We recently had – I wouldn’t call it an engagement – where we got relatively close to the J-20s along with our F-35s in the East China Sea and we're relatively impressed with the command and control that was associated with the J-20," Wilsbach said about China's prized fighter.

He added that it was "too early to tell exactly what they intend to do with [the J-20] – whether it’s going to be more like an F-35 that’s capable of doing many, many missions or more like an F-22 that is primarily an air superiority fighter that has an air-to-ground capability."

The PLA Air Force's Chengdu J-20s, also known as the "Mighty Dragon," is said to be China's answer to the US F-22 and F-35. Recently, China had upgraded a unit of the J-20s with domestically developed engines, which will boost its ability to perform two major tasks: air-to-air combat and ground attack.

Wilsbach also mentioned PLA's KJ-500 early-warning aircraft which "plays a significant role in some of their capability for long-range fires." "Some of their very long-range air-to-air missiles are aided by that KJ-500. Being able to interrupt that kill chain is something that interests me greatly," said the commander.

Meanwhile, a report by South China Morning Post said advanced Chinese and American fighter jets have had several encounters in the East China Sea.

Referring to Wilsbach's comments, the report said such contacts were frequent in the second half of 2020 as "tensions escalated between Beijing and Washington under the cloud of a likely October surprise in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency."

"Beijing sent KJ-500 and more J-20s to conduct long-range patrols of the East China Sea in March 2020, when the PLA raised combat alert levels to prevent the American side from staging surprise attacks as the Covid-19 pandemic raged on the mainland," the source told the news outlet.

Zhou Chenming, a researcher at the Yuan Wang military think tank in Beijing, too echoed the same sentiment, adding that Wilsbach’s observation indicated that the U.S. Air Force had engaged with PLA pilots many times.

"The key role of the joint operation of J-20s and KJ-500s is to stop the US Air Force from accessing the East China Sea in the event of a contingency if the PLA decides to attack Taiwan," Zhou told South China Morning Post.