The file photo shows a J-20 stealth fighter jet attached to the Chinese PLA Air Force flies through the clouds overhead during a flight training exercise. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Yang Jun)

 
A top US Air Force general said that US F-35 stealth fighter jets recently had a close contact with China's J-20 stealth fighter jets over the East China Sea, and the US forces are "impressed" by them.

If the incident is true, it is likely that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force sortied the J-20s to counter the possibly provocative activities by the US F-35s near China as part of routine maritime management and control missions, Chinese analysts said on Thursday.

"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," General Kenneth Wilsbach, Commander of the US Pacific Air Forces, said in an online discussion event on YouTube on Tuesday.

Noting that the Chinese pilots "are flying the J-20s pretty well," Wilsbach said that the US is still trying to figure out whether the J-20 is more like an F-35 that is capable of carrying out multiple types of missions, or more like an F-22 that is primarily an air superiority fighter that has an air-to-ground capability.

Wilsbach also said China's KJ-500 early warning aircraft could guide very-long-range air-to-air missiles carried by other aircraft to hit targets very far away.

While the PLA Air Force has not confirmed Wilsbach's remarks as of press time, Wang Li, a J-20 pilot at the Wang Hai Air Group affiliated with the PLA Eastern Theater Command Air Force, said on China Central Television on March 5 that he had participated in routine maritime management and control missions with the J-20, meaning that it is indeed possible that the J-20 could have appeared over the East China Sea.

The background of such incident is likely that the US Air Force was carrying out an attack simulation or other kinds of exercises targeting China, Hu Bo, director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a Beijing-based think tank, told the Global Times on Thursday.

It seems that Wilsbach was praising the J-20's performance, but what he did was actually showing off US' capabilities in the East China Sea, Hu said.

The PLA, on the other hand, must have grasped the US activities, Hu said, noting that the contact by both sides' most advanced fighter jets indicates that the competition between them is growing even stronger.

Judging from the remarks by the US general and the Chinese pilot, it is likely that the US F-35s first entered China's East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone and were picked up by PLA early warning systems, thanks to technologies like China's world-leading anti-stealth radars, a Chinese military expert told the Global Times on Thursday, requesting anonymity.

Upon detection, the PLA Air Force sortied the J-20s as part of their routine maritime management and control missions, the expert said, noting that since the US sent the stealth-capable F-35s, China needed to deploy aircraft with equivalent or better capabilities, which are the J-20s.

This serves as a countermeasure to US' possibly provocative activities, as the Chinese aircraft could monitor the US aircraft and ask them to leave if they come too close to Chinese territorial airspace, the expert said.