Less than a month ago, People’s Daily, the organ paper of the Chinese Communist Party, announced that Sino-Japan relations had gone from “ice to nice” since the two countries’ premiers exchanged visits. This was followed by news reports that China and Japan are to step up military exchanges, beginning with a visit to Japan later this year by Chinese defense minister Cao Gangchuan and a first-ever port call by a Chinese naval ship. Against this background, China’s official Xinhua News Agency ran an article on June 14th cautioning that Japan has achieved a major breakthrough in the development of military jumbo aircraft and has in fact overtaken China in the field. Japan’s new C-X cargo aircraft.
The article notes that Japan’s unveiling of its C-X cargo and P-X maritime patrol aircraft prototypes came shortly after China’s recent announcement of its own jumbo-aircraft program.The article states that,
Since Beijing declared in March that “China’s dream to have self-developed jumbo aircraft is expected to come true by 2020,” there has been ample coverage in official media of developments in this area, including reports on the role of private investment in the project, the selection of Shanghai and Xi’an as assembly cities for the aircraft, and possible future cooperation with Russia. China’s aviation industry has witnessed exponential growth in recent years. In addition to the economics of satisfying marketplace demand, there is an indisputably nationalistic element to Beijing’s jumbo-aircraft program, as evidenced by this March 3rd piece in People’s Daily:
The “two bombs” refers to China’s successful testing of a fission bomb in 1964 and a fusion bomb just three years later. The “one star” refers to the 1970 launch and reclamation of the Dongfanghong-1 (East Is Red No. 1) satellite. And the “manned spaceship” refers to the Shenzhou V, China’s first manned spacecraft that orbited the earth 14 times in 2003. It will be interesting to see if this latest thaw in Sino-Japanese relations survives Japan’s next major industry competition to replace the country’s ageing fleet of F-4 Phantoms–a competition which may have a far more dramatic effect on the regional balance of power.
