The construction of its own fifth generation fighter by Japan was a landmark step for the country. The aircraft industry of the Land of the Rising Sun has risen to a qualitatively new level - and in this sense, Japan is trying to catch up with both Russia and the United States. From a military-political point of view, the Japanese fighter clearly looks like a signal for China.
At the end of April, the X-2 fighter, built using stealth technologies, took off for the first time in Japan. An ordinary event by the standards of modern military aviation, however, became a milestone in the development of the aircraft industry and the air force of this country. As the Business Insider resource emphasizes, Japan has now joined the elite club of countries capable of producing fifth generation fighters, including the United States, Russia and China. And the Japanese X-2 is in fact "the answer to the American F-35, the Russian T-50 and the Chinese J-20 and J-31."
The last statement is somewhat debatable. Even a cursory glance at the X-2 allows us to conclude that its design is closer to the classic aircraft for air combat F-22 Raptor than to the multipurpose "flying computer" F-35. As for the answer to the T-50, J-20 and J-31, here it is rather yes than no (by the way, the Chinese J-31 is an external copy of the Raptor).
The X-2 was the product of three phenomena. The first is the resentment of the Land of the Rising Sun, the second is its ambitions, and the third is the changing military-political situation in the Far East. The offense was the US refusal to sell the F-22 to Japan. However, there was no discrimination in comparison with other countries: the Raptor is not exported at all. Having raised the X-2 into the air, Japan proved that it is capable of creating a fifth generation fighter itself.
As for ambition, according to Jeffrey Hornung of the Ryochi Sasakawa Peace Foundation, "Tokyo is trying to make it clear to the world powers that the Japanese military industry must be taken seriously."
And not only the military. Japan, which has become one of the world leaders in the field of high-tech developments, in particular in the field of creating vehicles (cars, trains), for a number of reasons did not pay enough attention to the development of its aviation industry to the extent that it would be equal to the automotive or electronic … However, the Japanese aviation industry developed and manufactured good aircraft for general aviation, jet training aircraft, helicopters and seaplanes, business jets, and the YS-11 twin-engine regional turboprop enjoyed a good reputation with international airlines.
But at the end of the last decade, the situation changed. Japan joined the fight for the international aviation market by offering it a new regional jet, the MRJ. Despite the fact that it will not be supplied to customers until 2018, there are already 233 firm orders and 194 option orders for it (more than for the Russian Superjet-100).
Even the traditional automaker Honda began to develop and build aircraft, offering a business jet of an especially small class HondaJet on the market. The creation of the X-2 as a potential competitor to the American and Russian fifth generation fighters in the future fits well into this picture. As the American publication Foreign Policy notes, "mastering sophisticated stealth technology could increase Japan's chances of participating in an international consortium to develop a next-generation fighter jet."
No less a contribution to the creation of X-2, according to Foreign Policy, was made by the already mentioned military-political changes in the Far East: on the one hand, the complicating relations between Japan and China, on the other, the growing militancy of North Korea. Tokyo's reaction to these changes was, in particular, the decision of the ruling cabinet to lift the ban on the use of Japanese armed forces outside Japan, as well as an annual increase in the country's military budget (for more details on Japanese military reform, see this article of the VZGLYAD newspaper).
According to Hornung, in the confrontation between Tokyo and Beijing around the islands in the South China Sea, the creation of the X-2 fighter should make it clear to the Celestial Empire that Japan does not intend to retreat. Moreover, according to the Christian Science Monitor, in 2015, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces were forced to take their fighters into the air 571 times to intercept Chinese planes invading Japanese airspace. Compared to 2014 (464 cases), the number of such incidents increased by 23%. Apparently, the Land of the Rising Sun no longer considers its current fighter force, consisting of 190 obsolete F-15Js, to be adequate protection against Chinese air invasion.
It is also worth noting that, despite the external similarity of the X-22 with the F-22 and T-50, in terms of its weight characteristics it is rather closer to the F-16 and MiG-29. It is too early to say that this is a full-fledged combat fighter. According to some experts, its engines are not powerful enough, in addition, it is not yet equipped with weapons. The configuration of the nozzles allows us to conclude that the X-2 has a function of a controlled thrust vector, which increases its maneuverability. This feature will allow him to more effectively resist Chinese fighters.
At the same time, the task of fighting the Chinese "twins" of Russian fighters is more urgent for Japan, because it is they, and not the J-31 copied from the F-22, that constitute the basis of the Celestial Empire's fighter aircraft. The X-2 has radar stealth, which should give it carte blanche to counter these vehicles.
Representatives of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries emphasize that the X-2 is still only a prototype with "a glider, engines and other modern systems and equipment that can be used in future fighters." The combat variant will receive the designation F-3 and will probably not enter service until 2030. But in any case, we can already say that the aviation industry of the Land of the Rising Sun has risen to a qualitatively new level.
