This month, military enthusiasts in Chinese online chat rooms were jubilant: The J-20, the stealth fighter that the country’s military is developing, had just performed its first loop in a test flight. “I’m so proud!!!” wrote one internet user under the nickname of Zongjiezhe.
It was only the latest in a series of firsts over the past year that show Beijing is starting to harvest the results of a multiyear effort to modernise its armed forces.
In late 2010, the Second Artillery Force, the strategic missile force in the People’s Liberation Army, started deploying a new land-based missile that will eventually enable it to target US aircraft carriers and thus challenge the superpower’s naval superiority in the region.
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