During a recent three-day visit to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, General Mark Welsh said that China and Russia are primary examples of countries who will have highly capable fighter aircraft in the next three to five years.
Welsh also said dozens of countries around the world would use Russian and Chinese top-end fighters in the future.
The US spends nearly three times as much as China and seven times as much as Russia.
A Chinese state-owned newspaper warned Monday that there is an impending threat of a war between the two countries unless Washington stops demanding Beijing to halt its construction projects in South China Sea.
“If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea,” The Global Times, an influential newspaper owned by the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper the People’s Daily, said in an editorial.
