Stealth planes China Chengdu J-20 Race to Stealth

The Chengdu J-20 a fifth generation air plane for the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) with a price tag of 110 million usd. In late 2010, the J-20 underwent high speed tests.  The J-20 made its first flight, which lasted about 15 minutes, on 11 January 2011. China thus became the third nation in the world to "develop and test-fly a full-size stealth combat aircraft demonstrator", after the United States and Russia. There have been some allegations as to just how the china managed to acquire the stealth technology, United States House Committee on Armed Services chairman Howard Mckeon said on the J-20 "my understanding is that they built it on information that they received from Russia, from a Russian plane, that they were able to copy"

 China probably declined to participate in joint development and production of a new fifth generation fighter with Russia given the belief that Russia stood to gain more from Chinese participation. Chinese leaders may have determined that their design was superior to the Russian PAK FA, Considering chinas stealth plane is twice as costly to the Russian stealth plan.


                                  Russian stealth plane PAK FA with a price tag of 47-57 million usd