China may have just shown its hand on how it plans to fight for control of the skies over Taiwan and the wider Indo‑Pacific. New images from the Chinese aviation community appear to show a PLA Air Force J‑16 fighter jet loaded with eight PL‑15 long‑range air‑to‑air missiles and two PL‑10 short‑range missiles – one of the heaviest air‑to‑air configurations ever seen on a Chinese jet. Here's how a fleet of roughly 400 J‑16s armed with PL‑15s could threaten U.S. tankers, AWACS and surveillance planes – the “lifelines” that keep Western fighters in the fight.
E-Paper
