Such has been the marvellous progress of China under the rule of Chinese Communist Party which is gearing up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding, the CCP affiliated media has now resorted to using the footage of India’s Tejas fighter aircraft in its propaganda footage aimed at placating the Chinese citizens and showcase the country’s ‘progress’.
Last week, the China Global Television Network (CGTN) shared a video which was aimed at profiling a Chinese pilot of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, who flies the J-10 fighter.
However, in the CGTN’s footage of the J-10 aircraft purportedly dropping a bomb has been found eerily similar to the made-in-India Tejas dropping a bomb.
The CGTN’s propaganda video has likely plagiarised the footage of Tejas bomb test at Iron Fist in 2013. During the exercise, the Tejas launched a laser-guided bomb and fired a Russian-made R-73 air-to-air missile. The Week reported on the incident as it wrote, “Even the welding of the aircraft’s underbody fuselage, seen up close during the bomb launch sequence in the J-10 video, appears similar to that seen on the Tejas video, even though the two aircraft have different designs.”
It is pertinent to note that the J-10 is considered to be China’s shining jewel over 450 J-10 aircraft’s considered to be in the service of the PLAAF.
Earlier this year in April, the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) tested the Israeli Python-5 air-to-air missile by deploying it on the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft. Tejas now has the unmissable capability to destroy high-speed manoeuvering aerial targets, which would help it in tracking and shooting deadly drones.
“The test-firing of the two missiles at Goa completed a series of trials to validate their performance under extremely challenging scenarios. The Derby missile achieved a direct hit on a high-speed manoeuvering aerial target. The Python missiles also achieved 100% hits, thereby validating their complete capability,” a DRDO official was quoted as saying who further added, “After successful separation trials at Goa, the live launch of the Python on a Banshee target was carried out. In all the live firings, the missile hit the aerial targets.”
The importance of drones in modern warfare cannot be understated, now more so than ever. Reported extensively by TFI, the 2020 Azerbaijan-Armenia war will go down in history as the first war where drones single-handedly turned the tide in the favour of the former. Militaries all around the world closely watched the conflict – and it provided a glimpse of the battlefields of the future. Drone strikes destroyed artillery and air defense systems along with tanks belonging to Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh forces.
It seems that China realises that J-10 are no match for the rapidly improving Tejas and hence are plagiarising the India made fighter jets footage in a video which was supposed to showcase China’s progress under the rule of the CCP.