> It's reasonable to say that the Chinese could produce 10,000+ 3rd or 4th gen fighters per year. No it isn't, and it wouldn't most certainly would not maintai

> It's reasonable to say that the Chinese could produce 10,000+ 3rd or 4th gen fighters per year. No it isn't, and it wouldn't most certainly would not maintain any of that capability within a few months of a conflict. I'm sorry but this line of thinking is simply out of date. The proof is in the pudding: the Chinese themselves are not massing loads of cheap platforms, they're throwing everything into the J-20, putting an enormous amount of effort into fewer more expensive platforms. Just look at their navy. They have cheap catamarans by the dozens. Instead of building hundreds or thousands of those, they're putting serious investments into building large surface vessels which attempt to match America Burke class destroyers. You seem to be under the impression that if, say China has 10,000 jets to 1,000 American jets where the American jets enjoy a 10:1 advantage that they would at a stalemate. That's just not true. The CCP watched the first Gulf War with horror as they saw technologically superior American forces wipe out division after division of war veteran Iraqi troops. Their doctrine then was one similar to Iraq, relying on larger less sophisticated forces. The CCP's since trillions of dollars in investments in matching American capability is their assessment of that previous doctrine.