plawolf
Lieutenant General
Clearly this is one of those articles which no one in the know is supposed to even consider as serious.
Western publications are absolutely worthless when it comes to reporting on Chinese military developments on the whole because they don't have the contacts (or any contacts for the vast majority of cases).
The only exceptions are the pieces they run on the PAF when they actually bother to do some real journalism and interview people in the know who actually have access to hard data and real equipment. Thise articles and the few times when a Chinese designer actually gives an interview to a western publication are the only times their articles are even worth the time and effort to read.
Every other piece those publications put out on the Chinese military are without exception pure trash. Those articles are just a highly selective repeat of forum posts that the author liked or flippant sound bites from people who might know a thing or two about the western defense establishment, but who are completely out of their depths when it comes to China.
The bulk of what these people say, and the articles that use them as 'experts' are just quota filling pieces written because people want to know and the publications feel they need to cover China rather than because they have anything worth while to say about China. It's completely backwards jurnaulism, and that's why it's so terrible.