China: Aviation finally takes off with help from the west

The first time China attempted to build a large passenger jet, it tried — and failed — to reverse-engineer a Boeing 707 that crash-landed in Xinjiang in 1971. The latest vehicle for China’s aviation dream, the Comac C919, has just completed its first test flight after Beijing decided to take a different path: buying parts from European and US aviation companies rather than stealing their technology. After many mis-steps, the maiden flight of the 158-174 seat aircraft was a big moment for China, economically and politically. The government told state-owned Comac in a congratulatory note that the C919 “carries great weight and importance to the country’s innovation drive”. Seeing it “flying in the blue sky makes generations of Chinese people’s dream come true”, it added. The C919 is designed to compete with the workhorses of modern short-haul aviation, the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737. It has a ready-made customer base as China is forecast to overtake the US as the world’s biggest aviation market in 2024. Comac has also built a smaller regional jet, called the ARJ21, and is developing a long-haul aircraft alongside Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. China has been trying to build large passenger aircraft since the Mao Zedong era, when Communist officials bridled at the prospect of having to fly overseas on foreign-made aircraft. President Xi Jinping, who often travels abroad on a Boeing 747 operated by Air China, is unlikely to start flying on the C919 soon, as it will be at least a couple of years before it goes into mass production. But China’s airliner project is still driven by politics as much as policy.<br/>