A J-20 fighter jet performs during Changchun Air Show on 27 August 2022. China is said to be integrating some J-20s with the domestically developed WS-10 engine. However, the length of the engine exhaust of this aircraft shows that it is powered by the Russian AL-31F engine. (Getty Images)

In 2016 when Xi Jinping instructed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to modernise, the order galvanised the Chinese military onto a trajectory of strident modernisation. It is a course that appears to have been unwavering despite unanticipated obstacles such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Xi’s orders were crystallised in a 2017 speech to the 19th Party Congress, which called for the “basically complete” modernisation of the PLA by 2035, according to a US Department of Defense (DoD) report to Congress in 2021. Evidence suggests that Beijing’s efforts to prepare the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF’s) for a potential war continued without pause during the pandemic.