Shortly after the surprise mockup of China’s new sixth-generation “White Emperor” warplane appeared at this year’s Zhuhai Air Show in Guangdong, China, Beijing stunned the world by putting on a dazzling display of two different, working variations of their sixth-generation plane. 

In fact, the science-fiction-like planes have sent many Western observers into a tailspin, at once denying that they are real planes and simultaneously calling it a “Sputnik” moment. Now, just as the U.S. Air Force was coming to grips with the fact that their own sixth-generation warplane dreams were dying under the weight of America’s harsh economic reality, the clamoring for the Air Force’s ghastly program has restarted.

Funny how that works.

Panic At The Pentagon

After all, many of the people publicly calling for the creation of what the Air Force has dubbed its “Next-Generation Air Dominance” (NGAD) fighters are the same people who routinely downplay China’s impressive technological capabilities. Now that it serves its own purposes, though, the storyline is shifting. We must have a plane that will take years to produce, cost up to $300 million per plane, and only marginally enhance American air superiority because China is readying to build its own.

Shortly after the Christmas festivities were finishing up in the United States, pictures from China emerged of what appeared to be not one, but two, distinct potential sixth-generation warplanes. One plane was larger than the other. The larger possible sixth-generation plane belonged to China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC), and the smaller one is believed to belong to China’s other major warplane developer, the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC).

Demonstrators Galore

Both planes are believed to be “demonstrator models.” This means that they may be test aircraft that the Chinese military will not ultimately use. The U.S. military has made countless demonstrator birds over the past several decades.

They are critical for learning about aerodynamics involved with next-generation planes and can be used as testbeds for an assortment of technologies undergirding advanced warplanes. While these are important steps toward developing next-level technologies that would outpace anything the Americans and their allies have, they are not necessarily the birds that China will ultimately mass produce and deploy over the next decade.

Further, it is believed that in 2020, the Americans did test their own demonstrator of a sixth-generation plane. This is to say nothing of the demonstrators of things like the SR-72 “Son of Blackbird” hypersonic unmanned aerial vehicle that Skunkworks has been playing with in the California desert for the last few years. That’s not to say that people should not be concerned about China leapfrogging the Americans in key technologies. Indeed, this author has spent the better part of a decade publicly warning about the probability that China is set to outpace the Americans and their allies in key technologies.

On the matter of a sixth-generation warplane, though, there are still many steps that China must go through to ensure that their demonstrators work properly and that mass-producing these birds as they are currently designed is worth the cost.

To be clear, if China decides to mass-produce these planes, it can and it will. Unlike the United States, China dominates global manufacturing and supply chains. It has the resources, domestic human capital, actual capital, and excess capacity to churn such systems out like sausages.

But will they want to?

A Giant Psyop

After all, the Chinese military is only now getting its fifth-generation warplanes humming along in terms of production quotas and domestically produced capabilities. For years, for example, the Chinese had difficulty making their indigenously produced engines work for the Chengdu J-20 “Mighty Dragon,” which was first unveiled in 2011. After years of trial and error, the J-20s are only now operating with the powerful Chinese-made WS-10 after-burning turbofan engines.

And China is only just now revealing the extent of its investment in its other fifth-generation warplane, the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation’s J-35. The J-20 is much more advanced than the J-35. But the J-35 is already advancing along. Despite these successes, why would China still be investing in their fifth-generation planes the way they are if they were already all-in on their proposed sixth-generation warplane?

The fact is, they’re not as invested as Western pundits assume.

But Beijing has no qualms about making the eggheads at the Pentagon believe that they’re already working on an arsenal of sixth-generation war machines. China’s rulers know the U.S. government has a massive spending problem. And the United States has a national debt to prove that view. Both Beijing and its allies, in places like Russia, dream of collapsing the U.S. economy. America’s onerous, self-inflicted debt load is the surest point of attack by these great powers.

What better way for China to hasten the American economic and financial collapse than by convincing us that they’re readying to field an arsenal of fantastical “air-space” fighter planes?

It is likely that China has no real intention (yet) of scaling its sixth-generation warplane demonstrators. Instead, it wants the Americans to overreact and bankrupt themselves trying to counter the mythical Chinese “air-space” fighter. Washington cannot fall for this obvious ruse. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, The American Spectator, MSN, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: Hamara / Shutterstock.com.