Opinion: How China Turned 20 Years Of Engine Snags Into A Fighter Jet Boom

For decades, India and China appeared to be running the same race. Both aspired to build indigenous fighter aircraft. Both launched ambitious military jet engine programmes during the 1980s. Both depended heavily on Soviet and Russian technology. Four decades later, however, the finish line tells two dramatically different stories.

China today fields the fifth-generation J-20 stealth fighter in significant numbers, is preparing the carrier-capable J-35 for service, and has developed indigenous turbofan engines that are increasingly powering its frontline combat aircraft. Satellite imagery and defence assessments indicate that Beijing is producing well over a hundred J-20 fighters annually across multiple assembly lines - an industrial pace that rivals the world's largest aerospace manufacturers.

India, meanwhile, has successfully inducted the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. Yet, the aircraft still relies on imported General Electric engines, while the indigenous Kaveri engine programme remains unfinished after nearly four decades. The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), India's own fifth-generation fighter, still awaits crucial decisions on engine development.

The contrast raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: what did China do differently?

The answer lies not in a single technological breakthrough but in political patience, industrial persistence, and strategic investment.

From Copying to Creating

As recently as the early 1990s, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) was hardly considered a formidable force. It operated largely upgraded Soviet-era MiG-19 and MiG-21 derivatives and remained focused on territorial air defence. Compared with the United States Air Force - already flying the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, stealthy F-117, and B-2, while preparing the F-22 - China lagged by decades.

Recognising this gap, Beijing did not search for shortcuts. Instead, it committed itself to a generational industrial strategy.

The first milestone was the Chengdu J-10, China's first genuinely indigenous fourth-generation fighter comparable to the F-16. That programme laid the foundation for far more ambitious projects. It was followed by the J-20 stealth fighter, and later, the FC-31/J-35 family, making China only the third country to develop multiple fifth-generation combat aircraft.

These aircraft are not perfect. Questions remain regarding aspects of the J-20's stealth characteristics, avionics integration, and engine performance when compared with the American F-22. Yet, perfection was never China's initial objective. Progress was.

Ironically, today's benchmark for American aerospace innovation is no longer Russia but China. Programmes such as the F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) autonomous wingmen, and the B-21 Raider are being accelerated largely because Washington recognises the pace of Chinese technological advancement.

The Engine Was Always the Real Battle

Building a fighter aircraft is difficult. Building its engine is exponentially harder. A modern military turbofan demands mastery over metallurgy, aerodynamics, precision manufacturing, computational modelling and materials science. Single-crystal turbine blades must survive temperatures exceeding 2,000 degrees Celsius. Every microscopic flaw can lead to catastrophic failure.

In 1986, India and China both embarked on indigenous fighter engine programmes. China's early efforts were disastrous. The first versions of the WS-10 engine reportedly required overhaul after roughly 30 flight hours. The PLAAF rejected them. Newly built fighters remained parked because suitable engines simply did not exist.

Many countries would have cancelled the programme. But China doubled down. Between 2010 and 2020, Beijing invested approximately USD 42 billion under its "Two Engines" initiative, pouring unprecedented resources into superalloy metallurgy, manufacturing technologies, testing infrastructure, and specialised research institutes.

Failures were treated not as embarrassments but as engineering data.

Thousands of defects were documented, analysed, and corrected over successive iterations. Over two decades, overhaul life reportedly improved from tens of hours to approximately 3,600 hours - a remarkable transformation, even if Chinese engines still trail the world's best in certain performance parameters.

The lesson is simple: aerospace leadership cannot be purchased. It must be accumulated through failure.

India's Different Path

India faced many of the same technical challenges.

The Kaveri engine programme struggled to achieve the required 90-95 kN thrust necessary for frontline fighter operations. Advanced turbine materials, thermal coatings, high-pressure compressor technologies and BLISK (Bladed Disk) manufacturing all proved formidable obstacles.

Yet India's institutional response differed fundamentally.

Faced with urgent operational requirements, the Indian Air Force understandably prioritised combat readiness. Imported engines - initially the GE F404 and now the F414 - became the practical solution for the Tejas programme.

Operationally, this decision made sense. Strategically, however, it delayed the development of an indigenous propulsion ecosystem. India licensed production, assembled foreign engines and mastered manufacturing processes. And, technology transfer has a much narrower gain. Blueprints rarely reveal decades of accumulated manufacturing experience, proprietary materials science, or process engineering. True engine capability cannot simply be transferred; it must be developed.

More Than Reverse Engineering

Critics often reduce China's aerospace success to reverse engineering. Certainly, China benefited from studying imported Russian aircraft such as the Su-27, analysing Western technologies and learning aggressively from foreign systems.

But that explanation is incomplete. Reverse engineering may reveal geometry. It cannot instantly create advanced metallurgy, manufacturing tolerances, testing infrastructure or the industrial culture required to produce reliable engines in large numbers. History offers many parallels.

Japan's aviation industry before the Second World War evolved through licensed European designs before eventually producing world-class indigenous aircraft such as the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. South Korea followed similar learning curves across its fighter programme, KF-21.

China's achievement ultimately rests on something less glamorous but more decisive: decades of uninterrupted state commitment.

Institutional Reform Matters

Beijing also recognised that fragmented institutions were slowing progress. In 2016, China established the Aero Engine Corporation of China (AECC), consolidating engine research, manufacturing, and development under one organisation backed by tens of thousands of engineers and billions in state funding.

The objective was clear: build a Chinese equivalent of General Electric or Rolls-Royce.

India's aerospace ecosystem remains more dispersed across DRDO laboratories, HAL, and limited private industry. Academia did not contribute much. While each possesses considerable expertise, integration and accountability have often been slower than the pace demanded by technological competition.

India's Window Is Open Now

The Tejas programme has created valuable aerospace capabilities. Indian private industry is increasingly entering defence manufacturing. Missile technologies have matured rapidly. Space achievements demonstrate India's engineering excellence. Take a look at the recent Vikram-1 rocket launch by Skyroot, a homegrown space startup in India.

The challenge now is to apply that same national focus to combat aviation. The AMCA cannot become another programme delayed by indecision. Tejas Mk2 requires sustained momentum. Most importantly, India must treat engine development as a national strategic mission rather than merely another defence procurement project.

The ongoing competition between France's Safran and Britain's Rolls-Royce for co-developing a 120 kN-class engine represents perhaps the most consequential aerospace decision India will make this decade. Both proposals promise far more than supplying an engine. They propose building an indigenous propulsion ecosystem encompassing design, manufacturing, testing, maintenance, repair, overhaul and future upgrades. The reported offer of complete technology transfer and intellectual property generated during development could provide India with capabilities it has pursued for decades.

However, technology transfer alone will not guarantee success. The engine has to be co-developed completely, if not alone. India must invest continuously, establish dedicated testing infrastructure, nurture specialised materials research, support private industry participation and, above all, remain committed through inevitable failures.

The Real Lesson

The comparison between India and China is not fundamentally about engineering talent. It is more about institutional excellence backed up by liberal funding and accountability. India possesses world-class scientists, engineers and designers. The real difference lies in the willingness to sustain long-term investment despite repeated setbacks. China accepted decades of failure as the cost of technological sovereignty. India often sought operational certainty through imports.

Today, China manufactures stealth fighters at an industrial scale while the United States accelerates next-generation programmes largely in response to Beijing's rise.

India now stands at a strategic crossroads. The choices made on the AMCA, Tejas Mk2 and indigenous engine development over the next few years will determine whether India becomes merely one of the world's largest buyers of combat aircraft - or one of the few nations capable of designing, building and powering them entirely on its own. History suggests that aerospace greatness is never achieved by avoiding failure. It is achieved by refusing to abandon the journey, which will work for Kaveri, too.

(The author is a national security expert, defence editor, and the founder of the military think tank Strategic Insights)

Source: NDTV Trending