China’s H-20 nuclear bomber accused of being “far inferior to the United States”

U.S. intelligence officials said on Monday that aircraft built by China to compete with the U.S. B-21 stealth bomber cannot even match the capabilities of U.S. aircraft, Defense One reported.

The Xi’an H-20 stealth bomber has been kept secret since China announced the development of a long-range bomber in 2016. A Chinese military official said in March that the bomber would be unveiled “soon” and noted that there were no major challenges in its development. But an unnamed Defense Department intelligence official told reporters that the United States is not worried about China’s future bombers.

According to the report, “The problem with the H-20 is that when you really look at the system design, it’s probably nowhere near as good as the U.S.[低可观测]Platforms, especially the more advanced ones that we’ve left behind. They had a lot of engineering design challenges, like how to actually get that system to function in a similar way to a B-2 or a B-21,” the official said Monday.

The U.S. official also warned that China has been saying for years that the bomber would arrive “soon.” The official said that even if China publicly displays the bomber to show off its military strength, “it does not necessarily mean that it actually provides China with the capabilities that China needs, or the number of aircraft that China needs.”

The Pentagon will publicly display the United States’ new stealth bomber in 2022 with great fanfare. The Raider stealth bomber manufactured by Northrop Grumman made its first flight late last year and has officially entered production. The U.S. Air Force plans to purchase at least 100 bombers to replace its B-1 and B-2 fleets.

According to the report, this is not the first time that U.S. officials have downplayed China’s air force capabilities. The former commander of the US Pacific Air Force said in 2022 that China’s most advanced fighter jet, the J-20, was only “not bad.”

The intelligence official, who spoke to reporters at an unclassified threat briefing, said the J-20 is a “very capable fighter system” and that the question is not whether China can provide an advanced system but whether the People’s Liberation Army has the “combat capability” to use these systems.

The official said that due to the People’s Liberation Army’s lack of experience, if a war broke out with China today, the U.S. military would win, albeit with massive losses. The official said, “The biggest challenge facing China is actually not the capabilities of the actual systems, but the ability of personnel to effectively utilize these systems quickly and on a large scale. As the US military, we have rich war experience. Yes, you and anyone Talk to the operators, they’ll all tell you all the problems we have, but frankly, we don’t have people in the PLA who have actually been involved in the war at all in terms of how to execute the kill chain.”

China’s military has also been cracking down on corruption within its ranks and recently purged nine generals from the country’s legislative body. Bloomberg reports that the scandal involves nuclear missiles filled with water instead of fuel and missile silo covers that didn’t work properly — a sign that some of China’s military capabilities may not be all they’re cracked up to be.

Asked about the reports, the official said that “these are actually probably real instances of actual corruption in the People’s Liberation Army” and that some of the missiles “may be filled with water or have silo covers that don’t open, but not all,” nor throughout the entire Chinese army. “

Still, the Pentagon is working hard to modernize in preparation for a potential war with China, according to Defense One. According to the official, Xi Jinping “almost certainly” believes the war is inevitable. “I don’t want to belittle the Chinese as not being good,” the official said, “because we won’t know if they’re good or bad until they shoot us, and I don’t want to be in a position where I find out, oh, they actually are that good. good,”