Xi Jinping Urges Military to Improve Drone Warfare Capabilities - Stresses ‘Triumphant Spirit’ Key to Armed Forces

Addressing students at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force Aviation University in Changchun, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has called on the armed forces to accelerate its drone warfare research and training. “Drones are profoundly changing war scenarios. It is necessary to strengthen drone combat research, education and training, and accelerate the training of drone pilots and commanders,” he stated, at a time when China is emerging as a world leader in the field. China today deploys more known classes of combat drone than any other country, including a wide range of stealth designs such as the Sharp Sword series of unmanned bombers and the WZ-8 hypersonic surveillance drone - both of which took centre stage at the PLA’s military parade in October 2019 and have no known analogues anywhere else in the world. At present, the United States is considered to be China’s only peer level competitor in the field. China is also emerging as a leader in artificial intelligence technologies, which have the potential not only to enhance the capabilities of manned systems such as submarines and fighter jets, but also to pilot drones autonomously which opens up considerable possibilities for a greater reliance on such vehicles. 

China is currently developing at least one class of unmanned AI piloted fighter, the Dark Sword sixth generation platform, and is also seeking to integrate unmanned aircraft into its upping carrier strike groups with Dark Sword stealth bombers expected to deploy from the PLA Navy’s upcoming Type 002 Class ships. Beyond drone warfare, Premier Xi further stated when addressing students at the Air Force Aviation University that “the training of a pilot embodies the expectations of the party and the people, and the hope to build a strong military.” He added: “Now we already have advanced aircraft and air defence weapons, we must also have a triumphant spirit, which is the soul of a strong army.” China’s military aviation sector emerged as a world leader in the 2010s, and the country today is the only one in the world other than the United States to have indigenously developed and inducted into service a fifth generation fighter - with the Chengdu J-20 heavyweight platform entering service in March 2017. Bearing testament to advances in Chinese military aviation, the J-20 integrates a wide range of technologies which surpass those of its U.S. analogue the F-22 Raptor including helmet mounted sights, distributed aperture systems and AESA radar guided long range air to air missiles. A new more capable variant of the J-20, the J-20B, was reported in July 2020 to have entered serial production, and multiple new Chinese next generation aircraft - both manned and unmanned - are expected to enter service in the near future.