It’s basically a Northrop Grumman vs Boeing contest, as only these two have successfully built operational naval jets.

Lockheed is unlikely due to the F-35 disaster, and General Atomic has no prior experience with a naval jet.

China wants free trade and the economic destabilisation to the South of reunification is handy for China now.

To the contrary, the ROK SAR(Formerly known as North Korea) is a nightmare and a job sucking vacuum cleaner for China, a dream come true for multi-nationals; what you are looking at is a business zone with 3rd world wages, 1st world governance and legal system complete with the US and European law firms, and FTAs with both the US and EU. You bet foreign manufacturers in China looking for an exit would flock to the ROK SAR en mass.

Worse yet, even the mainland market is accessible if the FTA that China pursues with the ROK goes through, so foreign companies have no need to stay in China. For example, foreign auto makers who control 70% of China’s auto market must enter a 50:50 JV with local Chinese automakers if they wish to manufacture their cars in China and avoid that 30% import tariff. After the ROK-China FTA and the collapse of North Korea, foreign auto companies can simply set up the factory in North Korea, export to China tariff free, and not bother with that 50:50 JV BS requirement.

How come their buddies did not feed them SU-27s and their chinese copies ?

1. North Korea is under the UN arms embargo. China and Russia have a lot of explaining to do when the Flanker(original or Chinese copy) shows up in spy photos.
2. Russia do longer provides arms as military aid to foreign countries ; Russia only sells them and North Korea has no foreign currency to buy them.

A major development in strengthening of the first island chain.

http://japandailypress.com/china-angered-over-japan-taiwan-fishing-agreement-near-senkakus-1026761

China angered over Japan-Taiwan fishing agreement near Senkakus
posted on APRIL 10, 2013 by ADAM WESTLAKE in FEATURES, NATIONAL, POLITICS with 19 COMMENTS

Following the announcement on Wednesday that Japan and Taiwan had reached an agreement for the later to continue fishing in waters near the disputed Senkaku Islands, China is, as expected, not happy about the alliance. Hong Lei, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated that the country was “extremely concerned” about the fishing agreement, as it still claims the uninhabited territory as their own, calling it Diaoyu.

Japan and Taiwan’s agreement to share EEZ fishing around Diaoyu Island will put Japan-Taiwan dispute in the back burner and remove the weak link in the first island chain, thereby allowing Japan to preserve the contiguity of the first island chain.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-to-demo-super-hornet-enhancements-in-summer-384367/

Boeing to demo Super Hornet enhancements in summer
Print
By: DAVE MAJUMDAR WASHINGTON DC 19 hours ago Source:

Boeing and the US Navy have confirmed plans to demonstrate the use of conformal fuel tanks, a weapons pod and radar cross-section enhancements on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet late this summer.

But industry is also investing in other improvements to the aircraft that are not going to be demonstrated during the flights tests later this year. The most significant of those developments are General Electric’s enhanced F414 engines. In previous years, GE had touted versions of the F414 with either greater thrust or greater durability, but current developments are focused on combining both of these, Gibbons says.

“Significantly more thrust, which provides great acceleration improvements,” Gibbons says. “In fact when accelerating from Mach 0.9 to Mach 1.4 – it takes, at various altitudes, a third of the time than it currently takes with that enhanced engine,” he says. “Huge performance improvement.”

But the same enhanced engine could be software modified to provide the same amount of power as the current F414 variants but with much greater durability and fuel economy.

Boeing’s analysis shows that the USN could save $5 billion with the improved engines installed over the life of the Super Hornet fleet, Gibbons says.

Dutch already mothballed its F-35.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/dutch-government-opts-to-store-f-35-test-aircraft-384394/

Dutch government opts to store F-35 test aircraft

The Netherlands is to place its Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft into temporary storage, pending a final decision on how to replace its air force’s Lockheed F-16 fighters.

Newly appointed defence minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert announced the decision to park the test assets in a letter to the Dutch parliament on 4 April. A first example – delivered in late 2012 – and a second, expected to be handed over in mid-2013, will be stored at Edwards AFB, California, where they will be kept in airworthy condition and flown occasionally by US Air Force pilots. The effects of the decision will be discussed with the F-35 Joint Program Office.

On 25 April, a meeting of the Dutch parliament regarding the F-16 replacement will be held, and with the current coalition it is uncertain which way the decision will go. The coalition partners say a decision on the F-35 will be taken before the end of this year.

In an interview, Hennis-Plasschaert said that her office was open for all interested manufacturers. This would enable Boeing to promote the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and Saab the Gripen E, although neither Dassault nor the Eurofighter consortium have confirmed whether they will offer their respective Rafale and Typhoon products in advance of a formal competitive process being launched.

The Netherlands ordered two F-35As to participate in US-led initial operational test and evaluation of the Joint Strike Fighter. The Hague says its operational phase of this activity is due to commence during 2015.

china do not support north korea to attack south korea or any country but we will defend north korea if some one tries to invade them.

Well, China should get its acts together quickly because the ROK defense minister estimates that his forces would destroy 70% of North Korean troops in 5 days. Past a week, there maybe nothing left for China.

but we do not support the idea of north koreas enemy using this weakness to their advantage to take over north korea for their own interest.

also russia has no place in north korea.

Neither does China.

if anything north korea is traditionally and rightfully china’s sphere.

North Korea is super anti-China, so much so that Kim Il Sung wiped out ex-Red Army officers who returned from China after the Korean war, and there is not a seed of pro-China element left in North Korea today.

The very fact that North Korea doesn’t give a damn about what China says today is the proof of how much “influences” that China has over North Korea, which is none. Then there is the testimony of Kim Jong Il’s personal chef Fujimoto Kenji, who testified in his memoir that the only country that Kim Jong Il would bad mouth in private was China, and that he never heard Kim talking badly about the other countries.

North korea was part of china as far back as the Han Dynasty

And then those people became “North Koreans” when Korean forces overran Chinese cities in 300 AD.

http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KOR-01-040313.html

Recent material published by Deng Yuwen, assistant editor of China’s Study Times, an educational institute for high-ranking officials in the Communist Party of China that Xi Jinping headed until 2012, stated, “Once North Korea has nuclear weapons, it cannot be ruled out that the capricious Kim regime will engage in nuclear blackmail against China,” Deng said, claiming that, when Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang in 2009, Kim Jong-il “suggested that if Washington held out a helping hand, North Korea could become its strongest fortress against China”.

Deng argues that China should begin to shift its focus toward facilitating North Korea’s unification with South Korea, thus helping to “undermine the strategic alliance between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul [and] ease the geopolitical pressure on China”.

The so-called “US-North Korea deal theory” whereby North Korea would participate in US efforts to counter China, if it ever came to fruition, is a policy direction that nobody could have ever imagined. As Washington pivots its military muscle toward the Asia-Pacific with over 60% of US naval forces to be located there by 2020, as announced by the US Defence Department this week, Washington would likely find more comfort in solidifying North Korea’s role as northeast Asia’s “madman in the attic,” so as to justify the highly unpopular American presence in South Korea and Japan.

Concerns over North Korea dumping China in favor of an alliance with the US have appeared in the party newspaper the Study Times. It is unlikely that the piece was merely the personal opinion of the writer, but rather a reflection of the Chinese political establishment, who feel frustrated with their increasingly noticeable lack of leverage with Pyongyang.

My two cents on the AESA element count.

The AESA element count is inversely proportional to the element output strength due to heat generation; you can put fewer powerful AESA elements on a radar dish, or more weaker AESA elements. This is the reason why the second-generation F-22 AESA dish has a reduced element count compared to the first one, because they now use up-powered elements.

The reason Captor-E has so many AESA elements for a dish of its size is because its AESA element has a weak output power, and it is highly unlikely that the Europeans will be able to catch up to Americans and Asians in the long run, because the ability to make more powerful AESA element is directly tied to GaN semiconductor fabrication prowess, which Asians excel at. While the most powerful AESA element used in F-22 and F-15C Golden Eagle are rated at 8 watts, Japanese and Koreans are lab-testing AESA elements rated 50~100 watts right now. With this much power comes the ability to break stealth via a brute force, ie the counter-stealth.

In case of Japan, they are counting on this 100 watt AESA element, along with other technology, as a bargaining chip to join the US 6th gen F-X program as an equal partner.

Mako Heat is dead. EADS’s not developing it.

EADS CASA tried to offer a twin-engine MAKO to Koreans as the Typhoon offset, but was rejected.