Stealth F-35 vs. J-20 Fighter War Summed Up in 2 Words: Quantity Wins

PUBLISHED on August 13, 2025, 1:44 PM EDT – Key Points and Summary: While the U.S. F-35 and F-22 may be qualitatively superior, China’s ability to mass-produce its J-20 stealth fighter presents a grave quantitative threat.

-China’s “offset strategy with Chinese characteristics” focuses on overwhelming the limited number of American fifth-generation jets with a massive fleet of J-20s.

China J-20 Fighter X Screenshot.

-This industrial might could allow the PLAAF to achieve air superiority through sheer numbers, saturating and neutralizing the technological advantages of the smaller U.S. force in a potential Indo-Pacific conflict and forcing a fundamental shift in American air combat doctrine.

China’s J-20 Has the Numbers vs. F-35

The battle for air superiority has evolved from a fighter-versus-fighter struggle to one based on quality versus quantity even if one accepts that in a one-on-one dogfight between the F-35s of the US Air Force (USAF) and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF’s) J-20s, the former will come out on top.

However, that is not the fight that the USAF is likely to find itself in.

Simply put, the USAF’s global deployments and limited stock of fifth-generation fighters (the F-35 and F-22) severely limit the number of such fighters the USAF can deploy to any given theater. If, as appears likely, Beijing should prove capable of mass-producing its J-20, the PLAAF will be free to throw the overwhelming weight of its burgeoning fighter arsenal at the relatively limited stock of US fifth-generation fighters, not only tipping the balance in a specific battle, but potentially shifting the broader geopolitical dynamics of the Indo-Pacific in China’s favor.

Maj. Kristin “BEO” Wolfe demonstrates the capabilities of the F-35A Lighting II, a single seat, single engine, all-weather stealth multirole fighter aircraft, during a practice flight with the F-35 Demonstration Team at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Dec. 13, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jack Rodgers)

And China’s ability to mass-produce the J-20 is all but assured, given that its industrial capacity is growing in size and there is no sign that J-20 production will not remain a national priority for the foreseeable future. A stark contrast to the United States, where budgetary constraints and industrial capacity have prevented mass production of the F-35 and F-22.

In the years to come, China’s growing economy, government-led funding, and prioritization, along with its need to catch up to the US Air Force, will only enable it to increase J-20 production.

The Chinese government has already indicated that it will mass-produce J-20s to dominate the skies in the Indo-Pacific. Coupled with an established supply chain, an extensive manufacturing infrastructure, and a large workforce trained in the production of the J-20, China has all the resources it needs to mass-produce J-20s in the near future.

China Scales J-20 Production

In a way, China’s production choices with respect to the J-20 have been the obverse of the traditional American offset strategy. While the latter placed all its eggs in the basket of quality over quantity, China’s “offset strategy with Chinese characteristics” has been the inverse of this and, as such, sought to overcome America’s qualitative edge with overwhelming Chinese quantity.

Consistent with such an approach, China has not sought to match the F-22 or the F-35 (platforms both noted for their emphasis on cutting-edge technologies), but instead has decided to mass-produce more advanced and less-expensive airframes of its own, like the J-20. If such a program is successful, not only will it erode America’s air supremacy but could shift the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific in China’s favor.

China J-20 Mighty Dragon in 2021. Image Credit: Chinese Internet.

Mass-production of the J-20 would force the US to produce more less-capable fighter jets just to keep pace. This is not to suggest that the F-35 and F-22 will not remain the US gold standard for stealth, avionics, and sensor fusion. Still, the increased presence of J-20s in the PLAAF would have profound implications for future air-to-air conflicts far beyond the capabilities of individual platforms. That is, an Air Force unit would not only have to worry about contending with a single J-20 but also doing battle with the larger cumulative force of J-20s, which are all individually able to leverage Chinese quantitative advantages. This fact alone would change the calculus of air-to-air combat, ultimately necessitating a shift in operational strategy.

Massed formations of J-20s could have a host of operational consequences for the US. For one, the US military has built its air campaign doctrines around its technologically advanced airframes and precision-based engagements against numerically inferior foes. Against massed J-20 formations, the US might be forced to disperse its assets or risk concentration on particular targets and overextending itself. In either case, large numbers of J-20s could subject other airframes to saturation attacks by capitalizing on a number of potential technological advantages.

Other countermeasures—such as the long-range sensors, heightened situational awareness, and stealth capabilities of the F-35 and F-22—could be blunted by overwhelming swarms of J-20s. Admittedly, airframes like the F-35 and F-22 will always have their uses, but the growing presence of massed J-20s will reshape the tactical environment.

Maj. Kristin Wolfe, F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team pilot and commander, performs the “high speed pass” maneuver at the California International Air Show, Salinas, Calif., Oct. 30, 2021. The F-35A Demo Team performed alongside the U.S. Navy’s F-35C Demonstration Team, showcasing two different variants of the 5th-generation fighter aircraft. (U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Kip Sumner)

Such a situation will also have implications for the competition for air superiority in the Indo-Pacific. To be sure, the US has staked a great deal on a relatively small number of advanced airframes. While that might be effective in many cases, it also leaves US forces in a precarious position against numerically superior forces. A large-scale air-to-air engagement between the F-35s and J-20s will not play into the US quantitative disadvantages. In short, if the US plans to match China aircraft-for-aircraft, it would need to revise its current production and strategy for future air superiority missions, even if the F-35 and F-22 remain superior to the J-20 in almost every way.

A critical factor is then the question of whether China can produce large numbers of the J-20 in the future. If this is the case, then the US will need to fall back more strongly on long-range strike and other capabilities that tend to thin out its forces in order to compensate. In this scenario, large-scale deployments on both sides would make air-to-air, one-on-one engagements between F-35s and J-20s less likely than in a more limited conflict scenario, which means that attrition and saturation warfare will become more important than they are today.

The US will thus not only need to exploit all the technological advantages its airframes have over Chinese offerings as much as possible, but it will also need to change operational concepts in order to counter China’s numbers, including new tactics, force structures, and support mechanisms to counter the mass production of Chinese platforms and change the nature of future air combat to one that its opponent’s quantitative strength will define. This might also necessitate stronger cooperation with the US’s allies and regional partners in order to create a more distributed defense architecture that can help counter China’s numerical advantages.

Quantity is Quality for China’s J-20

One thing is certain: the prospect of China mass-producing the J-20 and fighting on China’s terms rather than its own has implications for the future of air combat.

The question now is whether the US is willing to reorient its current fighter aircraft production toward one that is better suited to meet the requirements of a modern air-to-air combat environment or whether it will continue to ignore quantity and go along producing a relatively small number of fifth-generation airframes such as the F-35 and F-22.

The answer to that question will go a long way toward determining which side will emerge victorious in the future of air superiority, and the answer cannot wait.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.

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