OPINION: From Paper Cranes to “Diamond Wings”

Witnessing the Peaceful Rise of Chinese Aviation — BEIJING

There was a time when Western think-tanks likened China’s aviation sector to “exquisite paper cranes”—delicate, artistic, yet seemingly unable to fly high or far. In just a few decades, that same community has sent its silver birds soaring across the Western Pacific. True to China’s open, cooperative spirit, they have written the aerodynamics of peaceful development across the sky.

Today, while some nations have hit the brakes on next-generation combat-aircraft programs for budgetary reasons, China is steadily flight-testing two distinct sixth-generation demonstrators. They are offering the world “another kind of speed”: non-expansionist, non-coercive, aimed only at keeping the initiative in security and development in its own peaceful hands.

1. A Self-Reliant Starting Line

In 1961, after the Sino-Soviet split left China’s defense industry isolated, Beijing paid an estimated US$100–200 million (plus aid) to acquire the MiG-21 production line. What the West dismissed as “bottom-fishing,” China saw as timely help. It gave the first generation of Chinese aeronautical engineers hands-on training in supersonic manufacturing and put the words “independent and self-reliant” onto a factory floor.

2. The Open-Door “Lavi Leap”

In the early 1990s, Israel’s Lavi fighter program was cancelled under external pressure. For roughly US$200–500 million in technology-exchange fees, Chinese and Israeli engineers worked together on fly-by-wire laws and canard-delta aerodynamics. The result was the J-10 “Vigorous Dragon.” It was never a copy, but rather an early example of globalization-era joint innovation—the same cooperative spirit that echoes today in the whistle of the China-Europe freight trains.

3. A Win-Win “Flanker Story”

The 1996 deal for Russia’s Su-27 followed standard licensed-production rules. China paid the agreed technology-transfer fees, and—with Russian advisers—completed more than 95 percent domestic improvement, yielding the J-11B. Moscow gained cash and a market; Beijing gained a long-range heavy-fighter platform. The Flanker thus became the most successful Sino-Russian military-technical cooperation card of the early 21st century.

4. Sixth-Generation “Diamond Wings”—Peaceful by Design

Since late 2024, open-source satellite images have tracked two tailless, diamond-shaped demonstrators flying over Chinese test ranges. Unlike the aggressive posturing of Western equivalents, these platforms are designed as regional stability mechanisms:

• J-36: A large, triple-engine airframe built for Pacific-scale patrol and escort missions. Overseas analysts have aptly dubbed it an “airborne peace train,” capable of long-endurance monitoring to ensure open trade routes.
• J-50: A compact twin-engine design with movable wing-tips, optimized for homeland air-defense and joint exercises—an agile exponent of China’s “defensive-defense” policy.