Chinese Air Force, Navy See Significant Upgrades, U.S. Says

China’s air force is fielding new precision-guided cruise missiles, long-range bombers and drones as its Navy expands its long-range punch, according to U.S. military intelligence officials.

“While we would not characterize the modernization as accelerated,” it’s “progressing at a steady pace” and is significant, Lee Fuell, a director at the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center, said in a presentation released yesterday.

Fuell’s presentation and one prepared by the Office of Naval Intelligence for a hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington are the most detailed new public assessments of the Chinese air force’s and navy’s growing military capabilities.

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