Chinas

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping if he wanted to buy weapons from the United States, the U.S. ambassador to China said.

David Perdue said Trump raised the prospect of the arms sales from the U.S. to its ascendant geopolitical rival, an unlikely offer that if consummated would upend generations of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan and expose U.S. technology to a potential foe. Perdue, speaking to Shannon Bream on Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Sunday” days after Trump hosted Xi for a state visit in Washington, didn’t specify when the offer was made.

Perdue said Sunday that Trump, a Republican, was downplaying longstanding U.S. arms sales to Taiwan — which have drawn protest from Beijing for years — by couching it as just one of many sales Washington makes around the world — and even asking Xi if he’d be in the market for U.S. weaponry.

Bream had cited concerns from Republican and Democratic lawmakers over delayed aid packages and weapons orders to Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that seeks to defend itself from China’s threat to invade the island. Bream asked if the U.S. is denying arms to Taiwan to appease the Chinese president, who visited Trump last week.

Perdue pushed back on the suggestion, stating that Trump “is as strong on Taiwan as I’ve ever seen anybody” and has sold it plenty of weapons. Perdue also said Trump and Xi continue to talk about future U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

“But President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,’” Perdue said. “He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some, at one point.”

The U.S. is bound by its own laws to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. While not recognizing Taiwan as a country, the U.S. is the island’s strongest informal backer and arms provider. But multiple U.S. leaders have left ambiguous whether they would commit military force to defend the U.S. ally should China invade.

China has pressed Washington to halt the arms sales, most prominently during a previous summit in May between Trump and Xi in Beijing. After that meeting, the United States paused the sale of a record-breaking $14 billion package — and Trump described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

In their private talks at the White House last week, Xi pressed Trump to oppose Taiwan independence, according to Chinese state media.

In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun did not confirm Perdue’s remarks when asked about the matter on Monday. But he told reporters that China has always strengthened its national defense capabilities based on its needs and is committed to maintaining world peace and stability.

Finley writes for the Associated Press.

China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation continues to press ahead with the development of its ‘J-36’ next-generation tailless heavy tactical jet. Recent flight testing has offered interesting new views of the still-evolving stealthy design from the top and behind, prompting discussion about the aircraft’s features. There has also been talk recently about whether the jet might receive a laser directed-energy weapon at some point in the future.

The J-36 first broke cover, along with another next-generation tailless tactical jet design generally referred to as the J-XDS, back in December of 2024. There are understood to be at least four, and possibly five, J-36 prototypes flying now. A number of significant changes between prototypes have already been observed over the past two years, as you can read more about here.

The most recent video of a J-36 test flight, seen in the social media post below, began circulating online yesterday. The footage shows the aircraft coming in to land, providing good general views of the uniquely three-engined jet with its two-seat, side-by-side cockpit configuration, especially from the rear aspect. What is seen underscores a previously observed total revision of the exhausts from a trough style to a two-dimensional thrust-vectoring configuration akin to what is found on the U.S. F-22 Raptor. This and other significant changes to the design, including the addition of divertless supersonic intakes (DSIs) all around, not just on top, first emerged last year. The clip also offers a good reminder of just how wide the aircraft is overall.

As this particular J-36 passes by, it can be seen to have a lighter-colored radome, as well as at least one relatively large lighter-colored section on top of the dorsal air intake. A similarly colored radome was first spotted on what is said to be the fourth prototype back in July. This coloring could point to the installation of actual radar in the aircraft’s nose. In TWZ‘s first in-depth analysis of the J-36 back in 2024, we assessed that the jet’s very broad radome area could house an absolutely massive primary array.

The lighter section on top of the fuselage could be an aperture for a conformal antenna tied to a beyond-line-of-sight communications and data-sharing suite. In 2024, we posited that the heavyweight J-36 could serve as an intelligence-gathering and communications relay platform in addition to performing tasks more typically associated with tactical combat jets. Reliable and multi-faceted connectivity would be key for employing the J-36 as an airborne controller for advanced air combat drones, as well.

Another J-36 flight testing video that emerged on Monday, seen below, offers an additional view of the top of the jet, showing multiple lighter-colored sections that would appear to be additional conformal apertures for various antennas. There is a lighter-colored rectangular outline painted around part of the intake on top of the center of the fuselage, as well. The jet’s full paint scheme includes lighter-colored leading and trailing edges, which are critical structures on low-observable (stealthy) designs that often contain additional antenna arrays. Overall, the two-tone coloring is very much in line with what is seen on operational J-20 fighters in Chinese service today. The original J-36 prototype, at least, has notably worn a splinter-type camouflage paint scheme.

Whether or not the two recent video clips show the same J-36 prototype is unclear. The possibility has now been raised that Chengdu may be using a single serial number (36011) on at least some of the J-36 prototypes, a decision that could have been made for counter-intelligence and/or deliberate misinformation/disinformation purposes.

Much still remains unknown about the current or expected future capabilities of the J-36. Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) did have a placard at its booth at the 14th China International Defence Electronics Exhibition earlier this month that has prompted questions about whether the jet could be equipped with a laser directed-energy weapon. Chengdu falls under the umbrella of AVIC, which is a state-run enterprise. The Chinese-language placard in question describes a “laser weapon tracking system” with a power rating of “*00” kilowatts and a weight of “less than” 837.7 pounds (380 kilograms), per a machine translation. The way the power rating is written appears to mean that it is in the hundreds of kilowatts, which would put it firmly in a class capable of doing physical damage to objects, such as incoming missiles and drones.

Furthermore, an associated graphic shows a turreted system and a computer-generated rendering of a J-36 projecting a beam. The render appears to be from a video that depicts a J-36 using a laser to destroy other aircraft. Another computer-generated video that shows a J-36 using retractable lasers to shoot down incoming missiles has been circulating online since at least last year.

It is not immediately clear how official either of the clips depicting laser-armed J-36s might be, or whether they at all reflect real planned capabilities. The full placard presented at the China International Defence Electronics Exhibition, as seen in the video below, shows a variety of different laser systems, and not just for aerial applications.

The fielding of operational laser directed-energy weapons capable of inflicting any real physical damage has historically proven to be very challenging, and even more so within the size, power-generation, and cooling constraints presented by modern combat jets. As an example, the U.S. Air Force spent roughly a decade working on a podded laser weapon system that tactical jets could use to swat down incoming missiles under its Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program. In 2024, the service confirmed SHiELD had “concluded” without achieving its goal of an actual flight test. That same year, the Air Force cancelled plans to test a laser weapon system on an AC-130 gunship.

Despite important U.S. strides more recently when it comes to fielding ground-based and naval laser weapon systems, “there’s nothing that’s on the shelf right now that we are ready to put onto an airplane,” U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Douglas Wickert, the commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), told TWZ and other outlets just last week at a roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Tuesday. “The solid-state lasers and the power density and the different ways that you actually – there’s actually a lot of secret sauce in that. How do you make the beam, and how do you form the beam, and how do you pulse the beam, and all that’s in development.”

‘There’s development of the laser itself, but now the power and thermal management system has progressed so much that we can provide the power needed,” Dr. Michael Gregg, head of AFRL’s Air Warfare Directorate, said at the same roundtable. “We’ve also had new designs and engines that we know have the power … to direct that power in certain areas. So, from a system perspective, it’s much more feasible because everything has matured over the last decade.”

China has certainly made substantial investments of its own in laser and other directed-energy weapon capabilities across domains in recent years, and this is clearly an area of interest for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in general. When it comes to the J-36 specifically, TWZ has explicitly highlighted in the past how the three-engine configuration could be particularly useful for producing sufficient power to support a host of advanced and electricity-hungry sensors and other capabilities, including directed energy weapons.

Larger questions remain about the exact set of roles the J-36 is expected to fill, as well. The basic design is certainly optimized for straight-line performance, combat radius, and payload rather than maneuverability and agility. The jet has already caused a significant amount of debate just when it comes to taxonomy, as it does not seem to fit inside traditional definitions of ‘fighters’ and ‘bombers,’ something we have explored in detail previously.

“According to Yang Wei – chief designer of the J-20 –, the new [J-36] fighter can penetrate heavily defended airspace that the J-20 and comparable F-22s or F-35s must avoid, placing it a generation ahead,” Andreas Rupprecht, an analyst specializing in Chinese military aviation and TWZ contributor, wrote in a post on LinkedIn last week. “With lower RCS [radar cross section], high speed, and the capacity to control more drones, it could act as a node and command center for systems including J-20s and, especially, unmanned aircraft, while attacking high-value targets from stand-off range with long-range weapons.”

“The type could therefore represent a new class of ‘fighter,’” he added. “Online terms include ‘theater-level deep-penetration command combat aircraft’ and ‘high-performance fighter,’ analogous to a cruiser ranking above a destroyer within the Navy. Recent evidence gives this theory new weight and warrants continued monitoring.”

The J-36, as well as the J-XDS, reflect a larger burst of next-generation air combat developments in China in recent years. This includes an array of new crewed and uncrewed aircraft designed for operations from bases on land, as well as from the PLA Navy’s (PLAN) growing fleet of aircraft carriers and big-deck amphibious assault ships. The Chinese aviation industry’s development of a growing array of flying-wing uncrewed aircraft, some of which are very large, has been particularly notable.

In turn, there is something of an emerging gap between these developments and the pace at which the U.S. military is moving along similar lines, at least publicly. Boeing’s sixth-generation F-47 for the U.S. Air Force is not expected to take to the skies for the first time until 2028, though preceding demonstrator designs have been flying for years already. The U.S. Navy still has yet to officially announce a winner of its F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based fighter competition, and the current timeline for that program producing an operational aircraft is unclear.

As an aside, based on what has emerged publicly to date, there are signs that the F-47 may reflect a distinctly different design philosophy that puts greater emphasis on maneuverability compared to the J-36, and even likely the J-XDS. As mentioned, the J-36 certainly seems much more focused on payload, range, and level flight performance. In July, TWZ published a deep dive exploring why the U.S. Air Force would pursue a sixth-generation fighter with rear-swept wings, canards, and other features despite steady trends in the opposite direction visible in Chinese designs and ones elsewhere globally.

Regardless, U.S. officials have downplayed questions about China’s gaining ground in the air combat arena, or even surging into the lead in certain areas, in the past. “Chinese sixth-generation aircraft are in the nascent stages of development and expected to be operational by 2035,” the Pentagon wrote in its most recent annual report on military and security developments in China, which was published in December 2025.

In the meantime, the J-36’s design is already steadily being refined, and the total fleet of prototypes has been growing, offering new insights into the aircraft’s expected capabilities and roles.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Trump takes rare step of meeting foreign leader at the airport, underscoring significance of US-China relationship.

United States President Donald Trump has welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping as he arrived in the US for a three-day trip focused on issues such as security, trade and technology.

Trump took the rare step of meeting the Chinese leader in person at Joint Base Andrews in the state of Maryland on Wednesday, the first president to do so in recent memory.

The US president and First Lady Melania Trump greeted Xi and his wife on the tarmac during a welcoming ceremony, where a red carpet was rolled out and the couples exchanged handshakes. Trump and Xi then walked side by side, flanked by US soldiers, before standing for a gunfire salute and the US national anthem.

The in-person greeting is a sign of the significance that Washington ascribes to its relationship with Beijing, whose meteoric economic rise over the last several decades has transformed it into a global superpower capable of rivalling the United States.

Despite tense relations that worsened after the Trump administration placed high tariffs on Chinese goods – a move that was met with retaliatory measures from Beijing – Trump has expressed personal affinity for Xi and his desire for strong ties with China.

The Chinese president’s trip to the US will include a state dinner, attended by leaders of the country’s powerful tech industry, a military ceremony at the White House, and a visit to the National Archives, home to documents of historical and cultural significance such as the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

But both countries remain wary of the other as they compete for political and economic influence. The trip is likely to include discussion of issues such as the US war on Iran, trade, technology, rare-earth minerals and US ties to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as part of its territory.

An 11-month deal that offered temporary relief from punishing tariffs between the two countries is set to expire on November 10.

WASHINGTON — When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington on Wednesday, he’s expected to get a rare greeting from President Trump, who will be on the tarmac to welcome his counterpart instead of waiting for him to drive up to the White House.

Trump’s decision to greet Xi at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington rather than receiving him at the executive residence shows how far the U.S. president is going to honor China’s leader as he makes his first state visit in more than a decade.

First lady Melania Trump said her husband decided to personally greet Xi when he arrives in the Washington region because “they have a great relationship.”

“He’s coming on our soil, and we need to welcome them with the most respect,” she said of Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, during an interview Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s ”Fox & Friends.”

The White House has not released many details about Wednesday’s greeting, but Trump is expected to participate in an arrival ceremony at the base with Xi and his wife. The salutation will kick off a three-day visit that’s expected to be saturated with pomp, even by White House standards. The state visit, complete with a formal state dinner at the White House on Thursday, is supposed to reciprocate for the ceremonial grandeur that marked Trump’s May visit to China.

But it also is a showy patina at a time when tensions between the two geopolitical rivals are high over trade, artificial intelligence, Trump’s war with Iran and China’s designs on Taiwan.

Beyond using the visit to try to keep “strategic stability” between the two countries, Trump seems to be pulling out all the diplomatic stops to show off for Xi. Trump has lavished praise on Xi as a “great leader” and described a warm relationship with the man he has called a friend. That is all while he has given Xi a pass on many issues.

Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the “lavish welcome.” Wicker, R-Miss., said during a speech Tuesday in the Senate that Trump should not have invited the Chinese leader “based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party.”

Wicker archly suggested a list of topics that Trump could discuss with Xi at the state dinner, such as “the purposes of China’s massive military buildup, or about China’s clear support for Iran,” saying that “during every minute of dialogue” Trump should keep in mind that “his guest is a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. and China must interact at the highest levels because the countries are “the two largest economies in the world” and “probably the two most powerful militaries in the world.”

“The idea that we would not interact with them at the highest levels is irresponsible. It’s outrageous. We have to,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday while he was in New York.

Trump has made it clear he wants to wow Xi, telling reporters in recent weeks that he was delighted his new “work of art” helicopter landing pad would be ready for the visit while bemoaning that his massive White House ballroom would not.

On Wednesday, Trump is expected to try to match the pageantry he was met with in China earlier this year. Xi was not at the airport to meet Trump — Chinese Vice President Han Zheng was there instead. But there a red carpet was rolled out to meet Air Force One in Beijing. A military honor guard, a military band and about 300 Chinese youths waving Chinese and American flags and chanting, “Welcome, welcome! Warm welcome!” also were present. The children wore white and light blue uniforms that mirrored the traditional paint colors of the presidential plane.

Trump’s airport ceremony for Xi will be followed on Thursday by more formalities, including an arrival ceremony at the White House and a review of troops. Before the black-tie dinner, which will feature tech industry leaders like Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, the two leaders are expected to dive into the weighty issues behind closed doors, even as expectations are low that the trip will produce any major breakthroughs in the relationship.

On Friday, Xi and Peng will be back at the White House for a private tea with the Trumps before joining them on a tour of the National Archives in Washington. The White House has said they will view historic documents underscoring the relationship between the two countries.

Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Didi Tang contributed to this report.

The 13-year-old beat the previous 400m Asian Games record, set by China’s Ye Shiwen in 2014, by about 4.5 seconds.

China’s 13-year-old swimming sensation Yu Zidi has completed a hat-trick of Asian Games golds with a dominant victory in the 400m individual medley, two years before the Los Angeles Olympics.

The schoolgirl powered home in an Asian Games-record 4 minutes 28.56 seconds (04:28.56) on Wednesday to make it a clean sweep of her three individual events in Tokyo, following victories in the 200m butterfly and 200m individual medley, also in games-record times.

She beat the previous 400m games record set by China’s Ye Shiwen in 2014 by approximately 4.5 seconds.

It was the fourth-fastest time in the world this year, with world record-holder Summer McIntosh owning the top three.

With the next Olympics two years away, Yu is shaping up to be a major medal contender at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

Last year, she became the youngest medallist at the World Aquatics Championships, where she won bronze for China’s relay team at the age of 12, and has since been earmarked for success in the swimming world.

At the same championship, Yu finished fourth by a small margin in three individual events.

In March, the teen sensation built on her growing reputation with a 200m butterfly victory over seven-time American Olympic medallist Regan Smith at the China Swimming Open.

At the Asian Games, Yu has dominated the pool and showed another glimpse of her immense talent in the 400m individual medley, where she took the lead from the start and finished 3.95 seconds clear of silver medallist Ke Wenxi of China, with Japan’s Mio Narita finishing third.

In addition to grabbing international headlines, Yu has become a sensation at home following her Asian Games exploits.

The story of her introduction to competitive swimming after being spotted by a coach at a water park, and her struggle with interviews, has gone viral on local social media platforms.

At the games, Yu was asked by the media whether answering questions was the hardest part of competing. She replied, with a giggle: “Every time I just want to float off somewhere else.”

Chinese technology giant Huawei is facing a landmark criminal trial in the United States amid Washington’s long-running tech rivalry with Beijing.

The trial began in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on September 9, with US prosecutors portraying Huawei as a criminal enterprise that spent two decades stealing technology from US companies, deceiving banks and circumventing sanctions on Iran.

Huawei has pleaded not guilty and says the US government is attempting to turn ordinary business disputes and the actions of individual employees into evidence of a company-wide conspiracy.

The trial is expected to last about three months and overlaps with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s September 23-25 visit to Washington, where trade, artificial intelligence, tariffs and access to critical technologies are likely to be on the agenda.

Here is what you need to know:

What are the allegations against Huawei?

US prosecutors have accused the company of racketeering, money laundering, bank and wire fraud, sanctions violations, obstruction and conspiring to steal trade secrets from five US technology companies.

Prosecutors say the alleged wrongdoing stretched from about 1999 to 2020.

“Theft, lies, cover-up,” Justice Department lawyer Taylor Stout said in his opening remarks.

Prosecutors allege Huawei stole technology, including internet-router source code from Cisco and a robotic arm used by T-Mobile to test phones.

They also accuse Huawei of concealing the nature of its operations in Iran to move US dollars through the financial system despite US sanctions.

The government also alleges that Huawei supplied equipment that could help Iranian authorities monitor protesters during demonstrations in 2009.

How has Huawei responded?

Huawei, a major manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, denies any wrongdoing.

The tech giant’s lawyer Brian Heberlig told jurors the case was about “competition, not conspiracy. Innovation, not theft. Ordinary business dealings, not criminal conduct.”

Heberlig accused prosecutors of “cherry-picking isolated events” to construct a conspiracy that did not exist. Huawei’s defence says some incidents involved individual employees whose actions were dealt with internally, rather than reflecting company policy.

He told jurors that prosecutors will describe routine activities by global tech companies “but will twist those ordinary activities to try to make them look criminal”.

Huawei separately described the broader prosecution as an attempt to undermine its competitiveness, saying the US government’s “overarching narrative is demonstrably false” and that it had “the utmost respect for intellectual property”.

The case originated during Donald Trump’s first presidency. His administration placed Huawei on a US trade blacklist in 2019 and pushed allies to exclude the company from 5G networks, arguing its equipment could present national security and espionage risks.

Huawei has repeatedly denied that its technology is used for spying.

What has China’s response been?

Beijing has strongly criticised the prosecution, which has come weeks ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the US.

On Thursday, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said “the Chinese government firmly opposes the US side’s suppression and containment of Chinese enterprises”, when asked about the case and the American prosecutor’s “criminal enterprise” description.

China “firmly supports Chinese enterprises in safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests”, the spokesperson said at a regular news conference.

What is Huawei, and has the tech giant faced investigations before?

Huawei is one of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. It also produces smartphones and has become increasingly important to China’s semiconductor and AI industries.

Its activities have drawn scrutiny well beyond the current US trial.

Belgian prosecutors launched an investigation in 2025 into suspected bribery involving the European Parliament allegedly for Huawei’s benefit.

The European Parliament subsequently suspended access for Huawei lobbyists. Huawei said it had “zero-tolerance” for corruption and would cooperate with authorities.

Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou made worldwide headlines in 2018 when she was arrested on a US warrant after landing in Vancouver, straining both US-China and China-Canada relations.

The warrant was filed after a sealed indictment accused her and the company of bank fraud for misleading HSBC and other banks about Huawei’s business in Iran.

She returned to China in 2021 under a deferred prosecution agreement, and the charges against her were later dismissed.

Admissions Meng made as part of that agreement can, however, be presented as evidence in Huawei’s current trial after a US judge ruled them admissible in June.

They are legally separate but form part of a much wider economic and technological competition between Washington and Beijing.

Huawei became one of the most prominent targets of US restrictions during Trump’s first term.

Since then, the rivalry has expanded from telecommunications and 5G into semiconductors and AI, with Washington restricting China’s access to advanced US chips and chipmaking technology.

Last week, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, warned that a “Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the US and the world” and urged Washington to maintain restrictions on cutting-edge AI tech. He also called for action against alleged “distillation” of US models by Chinese AI laboratories.

China’s Foreign Ministry on September 14 accused the US tech giant of “fearmongering”.

“Fomenting various threats, engaging in confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global governance of artificial intelligence and is not in the interests of any party,” said ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun.

The state-backed Global Times newspaper went further, describing Amodei’s proposal as a “Cold War playbook” whose real purpose was to curb Chinese AI development and preserve US technological dominance.

China and the US were engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war at the beginning of Trump’s presidency in 2025. The trade war ended in a truce, but the world’s two largest economies have failed to strike a trade deal.

Beijing, meanwhile, has used its dominance of critical minerals as leverage and accelerated efforts to build domestic alternatives to American technology.

Currently, China controls most of the world’s rare earth minerals, including metals that are necessary for the manufacture of many technological items, from smartphones to fighter jets. The world’s second-largest economy has 60 percent of these minerals and processes 90 percent of the world’s supply.

In October, Beijing announced plans to require foreign companies to obtain permission to export Chinese rare earth equipment or material.

This meant companies anywhere in the world would need a licence to export rare earth magnets and certain semiconductor materials that contain even trace amounts of minerals sourced from China or produced using Chinese technology.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said its export controls on rare earths, which Trump had labelled “surprising” and “very hostile”, were introduced in response to a series of US measures.

The People’s Republic of China achieved a historic and unprecedented participation in the second edition of the El Alamein International Aerospace Exhibition (EIAS 2026), which was held at El Alamein International Airport from September 8 to 10, 2026. The Chinese participation came just days after the conclusion of the joint Egyptian-Chinese air force exercises Eagles of Civilization 2026. The significance of this Chinese military presence lay in the display of a fully integrated and realistic combat air system, not merely models. In this context, the Egyptian researcher will attempt to divide the significance of China’s participation in the El Alamein Air Show into several key areas, including:

– First: China’s prominent participation in the El Alamein International Air and Space Show in Egypt as a strategic shift in the regional arms market

Here, China’s extensive participation in the El Alamein International Air and Space Show constitutes a significant strategic shift in the regional arms market. Beijing has moved beyond the traditional approach of selling individual military components to present itself as a supplier of comprehensive and integrated air combat systems, competing with Western and American powers in the Middle East and Africa. China’s participation in the El Alamein International Air and Space Exhibition focused on several strategic axes to promote and analyze the concept of a full-suite solution. This was achieved by emphasizing that China does not simply sell aircraft but rather offers a comprehensive defense solution, encompassing attack fighters, logistics support aircraft, aerial refueling, and command and control systems, known as C4ISR.

The People’s Liberation Army of China sought to highlight China’s military and defense role and promote the Chinese model as a ready-made competitive alternative. This was done by showcasing the competitive advantages of Chinese defense industries, such as the absence of complex political conditions, rapid delivery, and comprehensive technology transfer to Middle Eastern and African markets. Furthermore, the focus was on the geopolitical depth, linking the Chinese presence in El Alamein to Beijing’s broader vision of strengthening security and economic partnerships with countries in the region.

– Second: Showcasing the most prominent Chinese aircraft platforms participating for the first time outside of China at the El Alamein exhibition

As for the most prominent Chinese aircraft platforms participating for the first time outside of China, for the first time in its history, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) showcased four of its latest operational aircraft models at an air show outside of China. The most prominent of these were

– The Chinese J-16 multirole fighter (J-16)

This air superiority and heavy ground attack fighter garnered widespread international attention.

– The Chinese YY-20A aerial refueling tanker (YY-20A)

This Chinese heavy transport aircraft provides refueling to extend the operational range of fighter jets.

– The Chinese KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft (KJ-500)

This represents an airborne command and control system.

– The Chinese Z-20K military helicopter (Z-20K)

This is a multi-role helicopter designed for search and rescue and tactical operations.

Regarding the Chinese weapons and drones on display at the El Alamein International Air and Space Exhibition, the AVIC (Aerospace Industries of China) showcased its advanced defense capabilities in the outdoor exhibition area through:

– A demonstration of the Chinese Wing Loong-10B stealth drone (Wing Loong-10B):

This is a high-altitude, long-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed for reconnaissance and precision strikes.

– A demonstration of Chinese smart munitions and missiles:

The Chinese drone was displayed surrounded by advanced air-to-air missiles, such as the PL-108 & PL-12AE. In addition to a demonstration of the Chinese anti-radar and anti-radiation missile (YJ-9ER1).

– Third: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) showcased its capabilities through a technical display (capability integration), dividing its export-available air systems into functional groups for attack, others for support and refueling, and a third group for command and control, during China’s extensive participation in the El Alamein Air Show in Egypt.

In this context, the PLA sought to leverage China’s extensive participation in the El Alamein Air Show in Egypt as a new and strategic launchpad for China in North Africa. This included showcasing the size of the Chinese pavilion and the equipment on display, such as aerobatic aircraft and unmanned combat aerobatics. The Chinese Ministry of Defense emphasized the technical aspects of this capability integration display, highlighting the division of its export-available air systems into functional groups for attack, others for support and refueling, and a third group for command and control. As follows:

■ The offensive functional groups were represented by a display of China’s modern fighter jets and attack drones, such as the Wing Loong family.

■ As for the support and refueling functional groups, China’s strategic transport and aerial refueling aircraft, such as the Y-20, were showcased.

■ The third functional group focused on (command and control), with China displaying its early warning aircraft and airborne command centers.

– Fourth: Analyzing and understanding the strategic dimensions of China’s participation in the El Alamein International Air and Space Exhibition, aimed at attracting more interest in the Chinese aerospace sector and promoting widespread military sales of Chinese military, defense, and armament equipment

Thus, we can analyze and understand the strategic dimensions of China’s participation in the El Alamein International Air and Space Exhibition, which aimed to attract more interest in the Chinese aerospace sector and promote widespread military sales of Chinese military, defense, and armament equipment. Therefore, we find that the extensive Chinese presence at the El Alamein International Air and Space Exhibition constitutes a genuine breakthrough. Beijing did not aim to promote individual pieces but rather to demonstrate its ability to provide a comprehensive and integrated air combat system, encompassing attack, support, refueling, and command, as a competitive alternative in the Middle Eastern and African markets.

Analyzing the economic and strategic dimensions of China’s extensive participation in the El Alamein exhibition, we observe the extent to which the Chinese People’s Liberation Army focused on achieving broad military exposure for its participation during the exhibition. This included showcasing how these Chinese defense, military, and air systems can reduce operating costs for purchasing countries while ensuring their independence in defense decision-making, without imposing political conditions or prior operational restrictions, unlike many Western and American systems.