China: J-31 Indicates Trend of Weapon Development without Government Funding

J-31 with tail hook for landing on aircraft carrier

In my post “Arms Race between China and America” on March 5, 2012, I said: Chinese government could order its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to provide it with military hardware at a very low price without any profit, which enables China to get more hardware with much less spending than America.

For example, a 071 landing platform dock (LPD) costs China only US$300 million while an American San Antonio-class LPD of similar size and functions costs more than US$1.2 billion.

In addition, in my post “China’s military subsidized by civil sectors” on June 13, 2012, I said: The construction of the “Jiaolong” manned submersible and the tests certainly cost a lot ($80 million to build and $160,000 a dive according to sources), but the Chinese government need not pay a penny as the Corporation building and testing it is an SOE. Lots of SOEs and their research institutes have been doing research and development useful for the military free of charge. Even if the government does fund such research and development in a state-owned or private entity, it is usually not included in China’s budget for military spending. From such facts, you can see that China’s military budget is much smaller than the actual amount spent.

It has been revealed in the biography of Li Tian a well-known aerodynamic expert in No. 601 Research Institute (Shenyang Aircraft Research Institute) of China’s SOE Shenyang Aviation Corporation (SAC), the project of the development of J-31 stealth fighter jet is entirely a SAC project with support of its holding company Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). It is not a government project and the government does not pay a penny for the project.

The SOE has to bear 100% of the development costs and there is no guarantee that the state will buy J-31 even if the project proves successful. Even the type name J-31 is given by Chinese military fans instead of Chinese military. It is much likely that if the government finally decided to buy the stealth aircraft, it may be called J-21.

The biography says that when the government invited tenders for the development of a stealth fighter jet, No. 601 Research Institute lost to No. 611 Research Institute (Chengdu Aircraft Research Institute). It was decided the stealth fighter, i.e. J-20 would mainly be developed by No. 611 Institute with assistance from No. 601 Institute.

However, No. 601 Institute believed that it should not stop its research and development for a new aircraft but had to use its own funds to develop a new stealth fighter in order to master the new technology for its future development, improvement of its core competitive edge and training and growth of the talents in its workforce.

In fact, enterprises developing new aircrafts on their own has become a common trend in China’s aircraft industry. In addition to J-31, FC-1 Fierce Dragon fighter jet and L-15 high-performance training aircraft are being developed that way. At present Chengdu Aviation Corporation is also raising funds on its own to develop a new multi-purpose fighter jet for export.

The trend has emerged due to China’s great national strength that has enabled its aviation enterprises to have such abundant funds.

In March 2013, Sun Cong, chief designer of J-31, told media that he hoped that in the future J-31 and J-20 would supplement each other for tasks of different requirements and that an improved version of J-31 would be China’s next generation of carrier-based fighter jet.

Source: mil.huanqiu.com “Biography of Shenyang Aviation Corporation’s Aerodynamic Expert Reveals J-31 is not a PLA project and developed entirely for export” (summary translated from Chinese by Chan Kai Yee)

---