China is clearly thinking ambitiously about long-range power projection with autonomous aircraft.
Pictures have emerged of large new Chinese uncrewed aircraft of a configuration remarkably like the United States’ B-2A Spirit and B-21 Raider bombers. This is prompting speculation that this design, too, is for a bomber.
Commercial satellite imagery captured the aircraft at China’s secretive Malan air base in Xinjiang province, reports The War Zone, referring to the type as the GJ-X. Disclosure of the design follows revelation in June of the CH-7 uncrewed aircraft, of similar dimensions, which could be a high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
While there are similarities between the designs, the GJ-X, if that’s really its designation, differs significantly from the CH-7 design.
These large uncrewed aircraft could support the Chinese military’s counter-intervention strategy, through provision of data on enemy whereabouts and activities, by conducting electromagnetic warfare and by making long-range strikes against land and maritime targets.
The design and size of both suggests long range, high endurance and stealth. That could also imply air operations as the airborne leg of China’s emerging nuclear triad.
The CH-7 and the GJ-X add to a comprehensive suite of uncrewed aircraft that China is developing. Numerous types were on display during a military parade in Beijing on 3 September. These included two fighter-like drones, similar in size to the J-10C crewed fighter and described during the parade as ‘unmanned air domination planes’.
It’s notable how fast China has gone from having no autonomous air capability to platforms such as the CH-7, GJ-X and high-performance combat drones—apparently in barely more than a decade.
An autonomous bomber would enhance China’s ability to undertake anti-access and area denial (A2AD) operations, driving the United States and its allies, including Australia, away from the maritime approaches to East Asia. Exploiting the significantly lower operating and sustainment costs normally associated with autonomous systems, China could generate great mass in operations by buying many such aircraft.
Rapid development of these autonomous systems also raises questions over the future and role of the Xian H-20 crewed bomber, which was to be the core of China’s airborne nuclear deterrent. This program may be significantly delayed. It may not be revealed until next decade, according to the Pentagon’s 2024 report on Chinese military power. Development of uncrewed bombers may be taking pressure off the H-20 program and giving Chinese air force a chance to push it to a higher technology level than first planned.
If paired with advanced air-launched strike-missiles, including hypersonic weapons, uncrewed bombers such as the GJ-X could dramatically increase China’s ability to threaten US and allied forward bases and forward-deployed naval forces. Ground and sea-launched strike missiles will also contribute. The US and its allies may then have great difficulty in responding effectively to an attack on Taiwan, because they simply couldn’t get their forces close enough to counter Chinese cross-strait operations.
A large autonomous platform such as the GJ-X would also give China greater ability to undertake offensive operations at the outset of a war, to strike the United States and its allies directly in a modern-day equivalent to a Pearl Harbor style attack. In a July Strategist article, Jennifer Parker argued that:
The Taiwan Strait’s geography, weather and Taiwan’s defences already make it a formidable task. That challenge is amplified by expected US and Japanese intervention from bases in Japan and the Philippines, forces China would try to neutralise pre-emptively.
A report this month from the Institute of National Strategic Studies at the US National Defense University echoes Parker’s argument, and suggested that China was seeking to deter US intervention by raising the potential cost to unacceptable levels and that if deterrence failed, the PLA would then seek to undertake offensive strikes against key US military capabilities.
The report refers to Chinese writings in military journals which suggest there would be attacks on ‘US naval and air bases, ammunition and fuel depots, aircraft carriers, and early warning aircraft’ to ensure any US and allied intervention fails to prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. It argues that such offensive strikes could see ‘cross-domain collaboration between unmanned combat forces in the air, land, sea and space domains, which can target the information systems, networks and command and control centres of the “powerful enemy” and implement precision strikes.’
The prospect of facing a large force of Chinese uncrewed bombers will demand that the US and its allies place greater emphasis on long-range air defence, including developing counter-stealth technologies. For decades, the US and its allies have de-emphasised control of the air at long range—a trend only now being slowly reversed with projects such as the Boeing F-47 fighter aircraft and the British–Japanese–Italian Global Combat Aircraft Program (GCAP). But the F-47’s entry into service could be as late as 2029, if current plans hold, and the GCAP isn’t due to join squadrons until 2035.
As we consider the prospect of China not just reacting to intervention but even pre-empting it by hitting assembling forces before they head westwards, we see a worrying gap in the US and allied ability to exercise air-defence at great range. The way to close that gap is to become more ambitious in developing collaborative combat aircraft—fighter-like drones. These must include developing long-range, high-payload and high-performance designs, but high unit and sustainment costs must be avoided if we are to generate mass in a drone-versus-drone defensive air battle.
This will be highly challenging to achieve quickly. Rapid defence capability acquisition in western countries is rare, and projects invariably run behind schedule and blow out in budget. China won’t face necessarily these same challenges.
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