We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Key Points: China recently unveiled the AVIC Baidi, or “White Emperor,” a fighter jet mock-up being touted as a sixth-generation aircraft. While its striking design features enhanced internal weapons bays and a focus on stealth, it remains a static prototype.

-China claims the aircraft includes advanced avionics, AI-enabled capabilities, and human-machine interaction systems, likely inspired by the F-35’s situational awareness enhancements.

-However, as China’s aerospace advancements often depend on foreign designs or stolen technology, skepticism about the White Emperor’s legitimacy remains high.

-Without a functioning prototype or test flight, the White Emperor may be more about hype than a true leap forward.

China’s Baidi ‘White Emperor’: Is It a Real Sixth-Gen Fighter?

The Chinese unveiled a new fighter last month, the Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC) Baidi – also known as the White Emperor. 

However, before anyone gets too excited, we should be clear: the new fighter is just a mock-up. 

The new jet has caused something of a stir in the aviation community, with the West especially interested in gauging the credibility and capability of China’s newest warplane.

So, is the White Emperor worthy of all the fuss? Or is the craft just a smoke-and-mirrors military-industrial project without any actual capabilities? At the moment, it’s hard to say.

Introducing the White Emperor

We still don’t know very much about the White Emperor. But the jet, if nothing else, looks impressive.

China, of course, is billing the fighter as a sixth-generation machine. However, that may be a stretch given that no one has yet to cross the sixth-generation threshold and China is not known as the pacemaker in aerospace development.

Rather, China’s most advanced fighters are either imported/licensed from Russia or (presumably) derived from spy-stolen blueprints of American jets like the F-35. It seems unlikely that the Chinese would suddenly possess the wherewithal to develop the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft indigenously.

Regardless, here’s what we know so far about the White Emperor: the showcased jet “has made significant modifications to the airframe, particularly focusing on the aft section and wing configurations, likely intended to increase internal weapons bay capacity and facilitate the carriage of larger, heavier air-to-ground weapons,” Dylan Maylasov wrote for Defence Blog.

J-20 Fighter. Image Credit: Chinese internet.

The internal weapons bay has become a fixture of modern aircraft for the sake of reducing the radar cross section (RCS); whereas in the past jets were designed with external hardpoints for carrying weapons, modern stealth demands that weapons be carried internally, where the angular surfaces of missiles and bombs won’t reflect back so much radar.

The drawback of the internal weapons bay, however, is that it often doesn’t allow for the quantity of weaponry to be carried, relative to external hardpoints, hence reducing the offensive effectiveness of an aircraft. The White Emperor seems set on maintaining a stealth profile and increasing its offensive effectiveness.

During the White Emperor’s unveiling, the mock-up was displayed with a placard that stated the new jet would facilitate human and machine interaction.

That’s vague, yes. But we can assume the White Emperor will attempt to rely upon artificial intelligence, and/or will feature data fusion capabilities like the F-35, meant to enhance the pilot’s situational awareness of the battlespace.

J-20 Stealth Fighter from China.

J-20 stealth fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Praise for the White Emperor seems premature, however. As far as we know, the jet hasn’t flown yet, as, again, what we see now is just a mockup. And AVIC’s boastful assessment of its own design (stating that the White Emperor has “undergone a thorough avionics enhancement, improving cockpit design and streamlining maintenance process,  which significantly enhances its readiness for deployment and operational effectiveness”) should be taken with a grain of salt.

All we can confirm at the moment is what the White Emperor looks like. And while the new jet indeed cuts a striking figure, that doesn’t count for much in and of itself.   

About the Author: Harrison Kass 

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.