Shenyang J-31/35 Stealth Fighter

Granted the F-35 is junk but why do you think the J-35 has a lot of potential?

The F-35 is a ponsi scheme to generate income for the US MIC, they find problems with the aircraft all the time and decide not to fund solutions... so the aircraft is not getting better, it is just getting expensive.

With two smaller lighter jet engines the J-35 has the potential to be the light cheap fighter the F-35 was supposed to be.

The engine on the F-35 costs 25 million dollars... these jet engines for the J-35 might cost 2 million each... even if they are disposable they would still be cheaper.

The F-35s jet engine might be two or even three generations ahead of the engines in the J-35 but two engines putting out more thrust that the big American single engine and the engines being lighter than the American engine means the Chinese aircraft is the better aircraft.

This type is a numbers aircraft and will work in teams to defend Chinese airspace.

With good enough stealth and being in service in large numbers is exactly what China will benefit from.

The F-35 in comparison might destroy HATO air forces because the cost of flight hours means only their top pilots and crew will get time on the aircraft...

(looks kinda like a mig-29).

Like the result of an F-35 and a MiG-35 having a lovechild.

Stealth technology makes aircraft harder to detect, but it also limits their ability to rely on close air support from less stealthy aircraft.

What do you mean?

Being light 5th gen fighters the F-35 and J-35 are essentially supposed to be stealthy F-16s so they will have a fighter role and a light strike role.

Any CAS role will likely be with standoff weapons like glide bombs and Kh-38 type missiles with another platform finding and marking targets.... high altitude recon or drone perhaps.

Little is known about the J-20 and J-35's electronic warfare capabilities. It's unclear how well they've integrated radar warning, targeting support, and countermeasures into a single system, and whether their situational awareness provides a comprehensive 360-degree view of the battlefield.

There is no such thing as an invincible or invisible aircraft.... in combat with a peer enemy these aircraft are going to be shot down... but likely not at the rate of previous generation aircraft. The point is that for each F-35 shot down that is 120 plus million dollars down the tubes, for a J-35... much less.

The west has more aircraft... but equally not the stomach to trade plane for plane with Russia or China or anyone else.

Pakistan's preference for the F-16 Block 70/72 over the JF-17 has been attributed to a much superior EW, sensor suite of the former. This suggests that China still lags behind in electronic warfare technology.

That would make sense but you have to ask would China put the same Avionics on a JF-17 that they would put on their J-35?

The J-35 is supposed to be a copy of the F-35 so why would they just copy the external shape only. It makes sense not to copy the engine as that would be way too risky and too expensive so they put in available engines, but for the rest, they can probably make it all for themselves...

The PLAAF might be buying the J-35A to ease the burden on WS-15 engine production and maintain competition between Chengdu and Shenyang. First the design, now the names! They literally just changed the "F" into a "J"

They changed a single engined fighter into a twin engined fighter... plus you could argue that MiG-35 and Su-35 sound like the same generation as the American light 5th gen fighter, while the Russian heavy 5th gen fighter is 22 plus 35 = 57...

Playing games.

The JF-17 is a much lighter weight fighter than the F-16. Pakistan got the JF-17 to replace its Mirage III, Mirage 5, Q-5 and J-7 aircraft. For that it works fine. It is way more capable than those aircraft. Pakistan chose the JF-17 aircraft due to economic reasons.

The main counter the Chinese have to the F-16 is the J-10.

True, the JF-17 is more of an F-5 type fighter but single engined. It is a cheap light 4th gen numbers plane.