Gates's China visit: Beijing confirms stealth fighter test flights

President Hu Jintao told Mr. Gates that China’s J-20 stealth fighter jet made its maiden test flight Tuesday. The plane is China’s version of the F-22 Raptor, though it is probably nearly a decade away from full deployment, aviation experts say.

Chinese websites had earlier carried photos of the radar-evading plane making a 15-minute test flight from a military airfield in Chengdu, China.

“I asked President Hu about it directly and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a preplanned test,” Gates told reporters after his meeting with the Chinese president. “And that’s where we left it.”Gates is on a three-day visit trying to put often rocky relations between the US and Chinese militaries onto firmer footing. On Monday, he and his counterpart, Defense Minister Liang Guanglie, agreed to set up a working group to study ways of building a firm framework for continuing talks, which Washington has been pressing for.


Gates said the two countries agreed that military relations should be “solid, consistent, and not subject to shifting political winds.” China has suspended military-to-military links for most of the past three years, in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan.