A mysterious aircraft covered with a large canvas, such a photo announced to the Chinese the presentation of a new air force aircraft, which officials in Beijing are announcing as an event from "of historical and strategic importance".
Although it has not been announced which aircraft it is, the media in Beijing speculate that the canvas will be taken off the strategic bomber of the new generation H-20, whose presentation was announced at the air show in Zhuhai last fall.
The first flight of the new aircraft was announced by the head of China’s Aircraft Testing Center, Ge Heping.
The Chinese authorities announced earlier that the development of a strategic bomber was in progress, the appearance of which was somewhat revealed last year in a video promoting the admission of recruits into the ranks of the Air Force.
According to available information, the new aircraft will be very similar to the American bomber B-2, and will have a range of about 12,000 kilometers, that is, enough to carry out actions against targets in Australia or the west coast of the United States of America.
The class "003"
China recently launched a new aircraft carrier, almost 300 meters long, equipped with catapults for launching and hydraulic ropes to stop the aircraft. When it is finished "Fujian" or "003" will be, according to the estimates of American military analysts "the largest and most modern" aircraft carrier built outside the US.
Almost simultaneously, Japan sent a patrol "Invent"a former helicopter carrier, which, in accordance with Tokyo’s new military strategy, has been converted into an aircraft carrier.
Invent", the largest Japanese warship built since World War II, was originally designed as a helicopter carrier, in accordance with Japanese laws that essentially prohibited the production of offensive military systems. With the strengthening of Chinese ambitions, this ship was partially modernized and two American F-35B multipurpose aircraft landed on it at the end of last year.
It was the first time in 75 years that an aircraft had taken off or landed from a Japanese aircraft carrier. The modification of this ship will be completely finished in two years, sometime around the time when the Chinese one will also be completed "type 003" be ready for action.
248 meters long, "Invent" is the second largest aircraft carrier built in Japan. About twenty meters long "Shinano"which was in fact a modified battleship of the class "Yamato" it was sunk by an American submarine at the end of 1944, just ten days after it was commissioned into the Navy.
A series of incidents in the Pacific
The launch of the new aircraft carrier and the announcement of the promotion of the strategic bomber coincided with a series of risky moves by the Chinese, Russian, US and Japanese navies in the Pacific.
A series of close encounters between Chinese and Taiwanese planes in recent weeks has somewhat overshadowed the complaints of Canadian authorities, who claim that Chinese fighter jets have on at least 60 occasions since the end of December "buzzed" in addition to patrol aircraft engaged in the waters around North Korea.
An aircraft carrier joined the Chinese maneuvers "Liaoning"which cruised through waters south of Japan and east of Taiwan, after which Beijing accused Japanese authorities of tracking and jamming the ship.
"We don’t need special photographers from Japanese ships and planes"said a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense.
The authorities in Tokyo have just sent an aircraft carrier to accompany the Chinese aircraft carrier "Invent"claiming that Chinese aircraft have conducted hundreds of flights in international waters south of Japan.
The Russians, with whom the Japanese have been arguing over the Kuril Islands for decades, also became involved in complex relations. Islands on the border between the Sea of Okhotsk and the Pacific Ocean, known in Russia as the South Kurils and in Japan as "northern territory"have been the subject of dispute between the two countries since the end of the Second World War, when Soviet forces occupied the islands of Kunashiri (Russian Kunashir), Etorofu (Russian Iturup), Shikotan and the small Habomai archipelago.
The latest in a series of disputes between Japan and Russia began at the end of February when the government in Tokyo called the Russian offensive on Ukraine "a serious violation of international law" and joined the punitive measures imposed by the West on Moscow.
Moscow, in a counterattack, placed Japan on the list "enemy countries" and ended negotiations on a peace treaty between the two states, which was supposed to resolve issues that remained open after World War II, including the fate of the Kuril Islands.
Chinese state television broadcast footage of joint patrols with Russian aircraft over the Pacific, announcing the possibility that the most modern aircraft of both countries will appear in such maneuvers in the near future – Russian "su-57" and Chinese "j-20".
Tensions in the Pacific rose in late April when Russian submarines fired cruise missiles "calibre" to targets in the Sea of Japan. The firing exercises in the Sea of Japan coincided with maneuvers by the US and Japanese navies, involving ships from the US Seventh Fleet led by an aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln".
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