BEIJING // Photographs showing what experts believe to be a prototype of China's first stealth fighter on a test run indicate the world's most populous nation could be years more advanced in developing its air power than had been thought.
Pictures circulating on the internet and published this week show what is believed to be a prototype J-20, putting China on a path to joining the United States and Russia in creating what is described as a fifth-generation aircraft undetectable by radar and infra-red.
It represents further evidence of China's growing military ambitions, following days after a US admiral warned that China's anti-ship ballistic missile system, which could restrict the deployment of American aircraft carriers in the Asia-Pacific, was operational.
The twin-engine, single-seat J-20 aircraft was believed to have been taxiing at high speed, a preliminary to its first flight, when caught on camera at a development site in western China.
Specialist media said it was unclear whether the aircraft, which resembles the US's F-22 fifth-generation stealth aircraft, was a full prototype or merely a model carrying advanced features for testing.
If it is an advanced prototype, the J-20 may be more likely to be operational in 2017 to 2019, as a Chinese defence official predicted a little more than a year ago, than in 2020, as was forecast by the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, who arrives in Beijing on Sunday for talks.
Only last week Admiral Robert Willard, the commander of US Pacific Command, said a land-based Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile was already operational.
The Dongfeng 21 D missile could be used to target aircraft carrier groups and might in future deter US carriers from operating in waters where China objects to their presence, such as in areas close to Taiwan, reducing the US's ability to defend the island, which China claims as its own territory. Overall the "carrier killer" missile, as it has been described, is felt by analysts as a possible threat to the position of the US as the supreme naval power in the region, where China has territorial conflicts with a string of nations, among them Japan in the East China Sea, and several South East Asian countries in the South China Sea.
Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor and Asia-Pacific defence analyst at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, said China's growing military ambitions and spending had "already affected perceptions well in advance of the change".
China posted double-digit increases in publicly announced defence spending every year between 1989 and 2009, and last year its official defence budget was $77.9 billion (Dh286.11bn), although the Pentagon estimates the actual figure could be close to twice this.
"The widespread view across the region [is that] China is gaining on the US and is looking at crossover points when the US will be severely challenged," Mr Thayer said.
"China has chosen niche areas to demonstrate it can move after the big boys."
He cautioned, however, that perception may be ahead of reality, so developments such as China's building of its first aircraft carrier, which could be launched this year, were "not going to change fundamentally for the next decade the military balance of power in the region".
While only the US, with its F-22 and F-35 models, has combat-ready fifth-generation aircraft, Russia has a fifth-generation stealth fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, that first flew a year ago.
This model could be destined for the Asia-Pacific region, as Vietnam is among the countries to have expressed an interest, although deliveries to the south-east Asian country are thought to be two decades away.