Chinese claim stealth fighter testing 'not linked to US visit'

• China's J-20 stealth fighter made its first flight during a visit to the country by US defence secretary Robert Gates

Mr Gates said China's president, Hu Jintao, told him the maiden test flight yesterday of the J-20 fighter jet prototype - which could eventually help narrow the military gap with the United States - was not timed to coincide with his visit.

"I asked President Hu about it directly, and he said that the test had absolutely nothing to do with my visit and had been a pre-planned test," Mr Gates said.

Asked whether he believed that, Mr Gates said: "I take President Hu at his word."

A Pentagon official said Mr Hu and other civilian leaders at the meeting with Mr Gates did not appear aware that the J-20 test flight had taken place before the US side pressed them about it.

The official said: "When Secretary Gates raised the question of the J-20 test in the meeting with President Hu, it was clear that none of the civilians in the room had been informed."

The flight of the J-20 may have been timed to coincide with Mr Gates's visit to signal to Chinese people, including military officers, that Beijing was not bowing in the face of US pressure, said Jin Canrong, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing who specialises in China-US relations.

Ardently patriotic Chinese, including some outspoken military officers, have urged the country's government to press Washington harder over Chinese complaints about American arms sales to Taiwan and US military activities in seas and skies near China.

"This is a kind of military transparency and it's also possibly an internal signal," Mr Jin said. "Some people may feel that China is looking too weak and this is to show some muscle. This says, 'We're not weak. We're also developing our own technology.'"

In a statement that appeared to implicitly acknowledge the test flight, China's ministry of defence said the nation's weapons development "is not directed at any country".

"In terms of timing, there was no intent," Guan Youfei, a deputy director of the defence ministry's foreign affairs office said in answer to a question about the flight, the official Xinhua news agency reported in Chinese.

An English-language version of the agency's report commented: "Guan denied the test flight was timed deliberately to coincide with US defence secretary Robert Gates's China visit."

Beforehand, reports about the flight of the jet - which could potentially evade detection by foes - in the south-west Chinese city of Chengdu spread via Chinese internet blogs and online news sites.

They showed pictures of a fighter plane in flight and some offered what were cast as running accounts of the J-20 stealth jet fighter taking off after mid-day for a short flight from an airport in Chengdu.The development may heighten concern about China's military build-up, including possible deployment this year of its first aircraft carrier and a new anti-ship ballistic missile seen as a threat to US aircraft carriers.

Some analysts have also said China may be making faster-than-expected progress in developing a rival to Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor, the world's only operational stealth fighter designed to evade radar.

But US vice-admiral David Dorsett, director of naval intelligence, has said deployment of the J-20 is years away.

Xu Guangyu, a retired Chinese major-general who works for non-profit group the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, agreed.

"There would have to be at least a thousand flights between the plane's maiden flight and its military deployment," he said.