Analyst say that the J-20 is overwhelmingly superior to the F-35...

via Global Times.

By selling the stealth fighter jets to its allies in the West Pacific region, the US is building an “F-35 friend circle,” Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The US, Japan and South Korea may conduct more joint exercises near China using the F-35, making it easy for coordination, Wei said. The stealth capability makes the F-35 more difficult to detect and will impact China’s national defense needs, he said.

Equipped with an advanced weapon system and capable of stealth and supersonic cruising, the F-35 is regarded as one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world. But China is no sitting duck in a potential clash with the US fighter jet.

China’s fifth generation fighter jet J-20, which has been in service under the People’s Liberation Army Air Force since early 2018, is endowed with state-of-the-art aviation and electronic technologies. Its range and weapons payload are widely considered to be better than the F-35’s, enabling it to achieve its main mission of gaining aerial superiority in a 21st Century battlefield.

Moreover, the J-20 has room for improvement. An upgraded version of the J-20 will have “overwhelming superiority” to the F-35 in the future, Wei said.
China’s passive radars and meter wave radars can also detect stealth aircraft, and can guide anti-aircraft missiles such as the HQ-9 and HQ-16 to destroy them, Wei noted.

Meanwhile, the F-35 has its share of problems.

The F-35’s stealth capability, one of the most important features that set it apart from previous generations of fighter jets, requires very high maintenance cost, as the radar wave-absorbing coating wears off and needs to be replaced after every flight, the news.com.au report said.

In September 2018, an F-35B under the US Marine Corps crashed due to faulty fuel-lines. F-35 jets have in the past made emergency landings, experienced in-flight incidents, including oxygen deprivation among crews, and suffered from engine fires and other failures on the ground, the Washington Post reported.

The Chinese military has not made public any reports of malfunctions of the J-20.

Read the whole thing this estimate is easily dismissed except for one undisputed fact.  The latest estimate of China's defense force indicates that they've damn near closed the gap.  So in that light I have to wonder if this might...just might...be true.