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The PLA Hopes B-21 Will Follow in B-2’s Footsteps

  • Published
  • China Aerospace Studies Institute

The B-21 was unveiled to the public on December 2, 2022. In the following two months several assessments of the B-21 were published in the media of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Almost all the articles avoided assessing the capabilities of the B-21 itself, instead downplaying the effect that the B-21 will have on the balance between the U.S. military’s offensive capability and the PLA’s defensive capability. It is impossible to determine whether these assessments represent the consensus on the B-21 in the PLA or not, but because they revolved around a negative prediction of the future of the B-21 program, the success of the B-21 program will likely force those optimists in the PLA to reassess the threat that is posed by the aircraft.

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