China showed its Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter in public for the first time on Tuesday, opening the country's biggest meeting of aircraft makers and buyers with a show of its military clout.
Airshow China, in the southern city of Zhuhai, offers Beijing an opportunity to demonstrate its ambitions in civil aerospace and to underline its defense ambitions. China is set to overtake the U.S. as the world's top aviation market in the next decade.
Two J-20 jets, Zhuhai's headline act, swept over dignitaries and hundreds of spectators and industry executives gathered at the show's opening ceremony in a 60-second flyover, generating a deafening roar that was met with gasps and applause, and set off car alarms in a parking lot at the site.