An official Chinese newspaper yesterday dismissed a report that the country used technology taken from a downed US airplane in its own stealth fighter program.
Chinese officials this month staged the first-known test flight of the J-20 prototype stealth fighter that could one day challenge US air superiority.
The flight came during a rare visit to China by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and caught many defense analysts by surprise, seeming to indicate that China was acquiring cutting-edge technology more rapidly than previously thought.
China says the aircraft is based entirely on indigenous designs, and the Global Times yesterday quoted an unidentified Defense Ministry official as dismissing a report citing Balkan military officials and other experts saying that China likely gleaned some of their technological know-how from a US F-117 Nighthawk shot down over Serbia in 1999.
“It’s not the first time foreign media has smeared newly unveiled Chinese military technologies. It’s meaningless to respond to such speculation,” the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper, which is published by the ruling Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily.
Calls to the Defense Ministry spokesman’s office rang unanswered yesterday.
The Defense Ministry has commented little on the test flight other than to assert that China continues to arm for defensive purposes only.
The US fields the only stealth fighter in active service, the F-22 Raptor, the successor to the Nighthawk. The US is also employing stealth technology on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, while Russia’s Sukhoi T-50’s stealth fighter made its maiden flight last year and is set to enter service in about four years’ time.
No direct evidence or specific allegation has been offered on how China would have exploited the downed plane, although Balkan military officials say Chinese agents hunted for pieces of the F-117 wreckage and may have shared intelligence with their Serbian allies.
Western diplomats have said China maintained an intelligence post in its Belgrade embassy during the Kosovo war. The building was struck by US bombers in May 1999, killing three people inside, and cementing firm Chinese opposition to the NATO air campaign.
Serbia shot down the F-117 in March that year, marking the first time one of the much-touted “invisible” fighters had ever been hit. The Pentagon believed a combination of clever tactics and sheer luck allowed a Soviet-built SA-3 missile to bring down the jet.
“At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers,” Admiral Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia’s military chief of staff during the Kosovo war, said in a telephone interview.
“We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies ... and to reverse-engineer them,” -Domazet-Loso said.
Parts of the downed F-117 wreckage — such as the left wing with US Air Force insignia, the cockpit canopy, ejection seat, pilot’s helmet and radio — are exhibited at Belgrade’s aviation museum.
While not completely invisible to radar, the F-117’S shape and -radar-absorbent coating make detection extremely difficult. The radar cross-section is further reduced because the wings’ leading and trailing edges are composed of nonmetallic honeycomb structures that do not reflect radar rays.
Experts say insight into this critical technology, and particularly the plane’s secret radiation-absorbent exterior coating, would have significantly enhanced China’s stealth know-how.
The newspaper report refuting the allegations that China used the F-117 technology came one day after a US federal judge sentenced an engineer of an earlier generation of stealth aircraft, the B-2 bomber, to 32 years in prison for selling military secrets to China.
Noshir Gowadia, 66, who was born in India, was convicted in August on 14 counts, including communicating national defense information to aid a foreign nation and violating the arms export control act.
Prosecutors said Gowadia helped China design a stealth cruise missile to get money to pay the US$15,000-a-month mortgage on his luxurious multimillion dollar home overlooking the ocean on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft