New stealth fighter jet to play 'crucial role' in nation's defense

Wang Yongqing, chief designer and top researcher at the Aviation Industry Corp of China's Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute, during work. (Photo provided to China Daily)

China's new stealth fighter jet, the J-35A, will play a major role in the country's air defense network in a "coordinator" or "organizer" role, and extensively strengthen the system's operational capability, according to its project leader.

Wang Yongqing, the J-35A's chief researcher at Aviation Industry Corp of China's Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily that the radar-evading combat plane was created to act as the backbone of the People's Liberation Army Air Force's efforts to neutralize high-level threats, especially hostile stealth aircraft.

Moreover, the J-35A is also needed by the Air Force to establish a "considerable scale" fleet of affordable, powerful stealth jets, he said at the institute's headquarters in Shenyang, Liaoning province.

"Our adversaries will definitely use their stealth aircraft or low-observable cruise missiles to penetrate our air defense networks," Wang said.

"And if those hostile craft succeed in infiltrating our defense lines, they will outperform our conventional countermeasures in terms of detection capability and range, which means they can spot us from hundreds of kilometers away but at the same time we can't find them. That means our defense units will not be able to survive such an encounter."