The Spirit of Shenzen, and it’s growing meaning

As an objective observer notes the bumbling, amateur, naive decline of the spirit of the USA as articulated by founders right through the great immigration waves in the 20th century in view of the growing impact of the free trade and manufacturing and engineering zone of Shenzen, China add this.

In the past several years something like shock and awe passed thru US analytical desktops as China allowed two new (manned) aircraft to be photographed. The J-20 stealth fighter, and then the J-31 stealth aircraft which appeared as China deployed it first (Russian built) aircraft carrier armed with the Chinese built version of the SU-33. Incidentally, they are now putting together their own indigenously constructed carrier which looks like it may be the size of ours.

The Diplomat:

China Says J-31 Fighter Will Compete With F-35 for Sales

A PLA Navy official has confirmed to state-run media outlets that China will export the Shenyang J-31 twin-engine fifth generation fighter jet.

According to the Taiwan-based Want China Times, Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong told the People’s Daily this week that the J-31 was never built with China’s military in mind, and it was highly unlikely that the PLA would ever operate J-31s off of its aircraft carriers. Instead, the J-31 was designed for export to China’s strategic partners and allies, particularly those that couldn’t purchase the F-35.

The J-31, often referred to as the Falcon Hawk, Falcon Eagle, F-60 or J-21, is one of China’s two prototype fifth-generation aircraft, the other being the J-20. It is built by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, and images of the aircraft first began appearing on the internet around this time last year.

Photos of the J-31 allegedly conducting its first test run surfaced last November, followed by a one-quarter scale model of the stealth fighter being showcased the same month at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, China’s largest airshow. It was identified only as the Advanced Fighter Concept at the show, although reports in China’s state-run media said that prototype was a J-31. More recently, last month, the Global Times posted a picture of a J-31 doing a test run on its online edition.

Previous reports in China’s state-run media have been mixed as to whether the J-31 would serve as the PLA’s future carrier-based fighter, or whether it was intended for foreign customers. Sun Cong, the chief designer of both China’s current carrier-based aircraft, the J-15, as well as the J-31, told the People’s Dailyearlier this year that future versions of the J-31 might become China next-generation carrier-borne fighter jet. However, representatives from the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a state-owned aerospace company that displayed the prototype at the airshow last November, billed it at the time as intended for export.

An article in the People’s Daily at the end of last month did little to clarify matters. The article referred to the J-31 as a fourth-generation stealth fighter, while also saying that is comparable to the U.S.’ F-35 fighter jets. The report first said that it would be exported abroad as a competitor to the F-35, before discussing the possibility that it will be China’s next carrier-borne fighter.

“Experts predict that the J-31 will make rapid inroads in the international market in the future, and will undoubtedly steal the limelight from the F-35,” the People’s Daily report said, noting also that competition to sell the fighter jets to international customers was “becoming a new variable in the Sino-US strategic game.”

The report added that, “The J-31, with its main target as the export market, represents a serious threat to U.S. arms manufacturers.” Later in the same article, however, People’s Daily noted that the plane’s landing gear was built to sustain the impact of landing on a carrier better than the current J-15s, and therefore might be used as China’s future carrier-based jet.

And we go on and on, with no sense of urgency about the economy, the fed, the debt, the increasing erosion of every form of deterrence, and a society more concerned with benefits than what’s left of the baton we hand our children.

If there WAS someplace to go that WAS America …. the place the Chinese of the 19th and 20th century called the ‘Golden Mountain’..