Even if this new bird is produced for PLAN or PLAAF, it won’t be a key player for 20 years. It hasn’t yet flown and is basically at the X-35 stage. It’s a hand built airframe nowhere near production. If it’s using Klimovs then it may be equivalent to the X-35 power-wise. It may even have a single weapons bay underneath rather than the pair on the F-35. But so what? It will be heavier (even perhaps overweight in comparison), use less fuel-efficient powerplants, use two powerplants to double it’s chances for problems, require more maintenance, fly with more drag, have half as many chances to use weapons if the doors to the bay fail, generate more heat at any given flight envelope, have inferior electronics, less stealth, and confined to use less efficient weapons. Doesn’t sound like a bigger threat than the Russian T-50 or their own J-20, more like a budgeted compromise for what is possible with their current technology. You might even say they want to keep up with the Joneses.
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