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Or China wants the real-time comms technology, with variable bandwidths that is difficult to spoof or intercept. It was claimed by a US-Taiwanese responsible to the media and Chinese news redirect it, but I cannot find the original source: http://3g.china.com/act/military/111327 ... 62022.html (Simplified Chinese)

Yeah heard this too but this technology should be well known by China now. My sense is the technology gap on most things doesn't exist anymore mostly because of globalization and well...cyberwarfare and industrial espionage.

Images show PLAAF testing possible new air-to-air missile

Andrew Tate, London and Neil Gibson, London and Richard D Fisher Jr, Washington, DC - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
02 December 2016

China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has been flight testing what appears to be a new long-range air-to-air missile (AAM), according to images posted on Chinese online forums.

Published on the social media platform Weibo on 20 November, the photographs show a PLAAF Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) J-16 (J-11BS derivative) twin-seat fighter carrying two AAMs not previously seen in open sources.

The photographs were removed from the micro-blogging website soon after appearing.

Analysis by Henri Kenhmann, an experienced observer of Chinese military developments, suggests that the missile may be intended to target airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft or other high value airborne units such as air-to-air refuelling aircraft.

The size of the missile is significant, with an estimated length of 5.8 m and a diameter of 300 mm. With no air intakes visible, it is assumed that the missile uses a solid-propellant-based propulsion system.

It is also noteworthy that the only control surfaces are tail fins: a similar configuration to the cancelled US Joint Dual-Role Air Dominance Missile or Next-Generation Missile.

The nose (radome) is ogival and likely to house an active radar seeker. Also seen on the upper surface and offset to the rear of the nose, is an object which could be associated with an infrared sensor window, although this cannot be confirmed due to the limited quality of the imagery.

Sitting behind the nose is a cylindrical section, slightly longer than the nose, which likely holds the missile guidance, proximity fuzing, and power systems. Present near its rear are four equally spaced strips, which are most likely antennas of a radio frequency proximity fuzing system.

Sitting behind this is a short cylindrical section, which likely houses the missile warhead section, the type and mass of which remains unclear.

The longest portion of the missile is the cylindrical motor section.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - British fighter planes visiting Japan will fly over the South China Sea and Britain will sail aircraft carriers in the Pacific once they are operational in 2020, given concerns about freedom of navigation there, Britain's ambassador to the United States said on Thursday.

rolled over on a 90-degree angle while being docked,

All of this news comes in addition to an already strange drone discovery in February, when the group Conflict Armament Research inspected an ISIS workshop in Ramadi, Iraq, and found several large drones built from scratch from plywood, Styrofoam, and extruded polystyrene. They also discovered disassembled components from a shoulder-launched Strela surface-to-air missile, which indicated that ISIS were attempting to fit the missile's warhead to a drone, presumably as an anti-helicopter weapon. The three-pound warhead would be too big for the Phantom quadrotor drones that ISIS uses for reconnaissance (and occasionally for carrying explosives), hence the bigger fixed-wing drones with its larger 10-foot wingspan.

Drone delivery has a few advantages over just firing a Strela missile like normal. For one, there is no rocket exhaust, so the launch position can't be spotted. Also a drone will not set off helicopters' missile warning receivers and can't be decoyed away from its target by infrared flares.