via Aviation Week.
The latest concept design of Japan’s proposed indigenous fighter may have moved a little away from the bias toward long-range and endurance over flight performance that marked the previous preliminary design. The latest design exhibited is evidently 26 DMU, the one prepared in the Japanese fiscal year beginning March 2014 as the last of a series of preliminary concepts. Japan has planned to decide in mid-2018 whether to proceed with an indigenous or possibly internationally developed,The rest of the story is behind a paywall, but my guess is that the Japanese will develop this airplane fully.
The F-35 will not meet specs for their defense needs and will only guarantee favor from the US (especially now...they're pushing the F-35 hard, so hard that it will probably affect future defense buys from allies).
A purpose built semi-stealth fighter that leverages advances in computing power, electronic warfare and the latest missile tech that they're developing will better meet the threat that China presents.
Just like the USMC is monitoring the development of the Mitsubishi Tracked ACV, I'm sure we'll monitor their work on this airplane. Could we be making a step back to the future? During WW1 we bought a large number of fighters from allies. Considering the current state of aircraft development in the US and how work is now starting in Europe, Japan and S. Korea (and only God knows what the Israelis are doing) on their next combat aircraft, we could in a few years see the F-35 going the way of the F7U Cutlass with a short service career and a hasty replacement.
