Thrust Issues: Are Chinese Jet Engines Finally Catching Up?

For decades, China’s military jets have had a dirty little secret: the airframes looked modern, but under the hood they were running on Russian imports or Russian knock-offs. The J-10, J-11, even the flagship stealthy J-20, all flew with engines that might as well have come with a Cyrillic instruction manual.

Now, that dependency may be ending. At DSEI 2025 the conversation wasn’t just about drones and AI; propulsion is creeping into the headlines too. The latest reports suggest China’s own WS-series engines are starting to look less like prototypes and more like production workhorses. The much-touted WS-15, for instance, is said to give the J-20 the kind of thrust needed for genuine supercruise, the holy grail of modern fighter performance.

And it’s not just Chinese sources doing the cheerleading. A GE Aerospace executive told FlightGlobal that Beijing’s military engines are “catching up” with Western counterparts. Sure, they still burn out faster and need more overhauls, but the quality gap is shrinking. When your rivals start admitting you’re closing in, that’s not noise, that’s signal.

Why this matters

• For China: Strategic independence. No more begging Moscow for AL-31s or reverse-engineering spares. A self-sufficient engine base means Beijing can scale aircraft production without external choke points.

• For Russia: Ouch. Once a proud exporter of propulsion, Moscow may find its biggest customer turning into its sharpest competitor. Losing engine sales isn’t just a revenue hit; it’s a blow to geopolitical leverage.

• For the West: A reality check. China doesn’t need parity to shift the balance, “good enough” engines in large numbers could tilt the skies in Asia. And if they start exporting jets with domestic engines, that undercuts Western and Russian market share alike.

Let’s not overstate it. Western engines, think F135s on the F-35 or Rolls-Royce’s EJ200 on the Eurofighter, still have the edge in durability, efficiency, and raw reliability. Chinese engines have a reputation for being high-maintenance divas: plenty of thrust on paper, but prone to shorter lifespans and more workshop time. And unlike test flights, real combat puts engines through thermal cycles that punish the weak.

But progress is visible. Serial production is ramping. Materials science is improving. And unlike in the 1990s, China isn’t just playing catch-up with Russian blueprints, it’s building an industrial base aimed at competing head-to-head with the US and Europe.

If China achieves engine independence, it doesn’t just cut Moscow out of the picture; it forces Washington, London, and Paris to sprint harder. The next race isn’t just stealth coatings and hypersonics, it’s propulsion itself: adaptive cycle engines, advanced composites, even hybrid systems.

The uncomfortable truth? China doesn’t need to match the West perfectly. It just needs engines that work reliably enough, in enough numbers, to erase the old punchline that “Chinese jets are just airframes waiting for real engines.”