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China has never hidden its desire to become a major force in the aviation and aerospace industries. And Sunday’s announcement that it plans to challenge Airbus and Boeing’s current duopoly by building big passenger jets, isn’t it exactly a shock?

I don’t think there is any surprise that the Chinese are saying that they are going to build their own aircraft in due course. But I think it would be at least a couple of decades before they have an aircraft that makes any meaningful dent in the market, and quite possibly several decades.

To help realize the ambition; China can draw on technical expertise developed over 50 years. It has already demonstrated a remarkable ability for replicating complex, highly technical manufacturing systems. The first homegrown Chinese jetliner, the medium range ARJ-21 Advanced Regional Jet for the 21st Century, should start to roll off the production line later this year. China expects to sell 300 of the 100-seater planes to Chinese customers over the next 20 years. There are 71 firm orders from smaller domestic carriers, and China intends to target export markets in Asia, Africa and South America. China is the world’s second largest market for planes outside the US. Sales are booming as the country’s airlines race to meet the surged demand for domestic air travel. According to a leading London consultancy, Boeing currently leads the way in China with a 64% market share. But Airbus is closing the gap. Both companies have invested heavily there, manufacturing parts in the country and transferring technical know-how.

The technological leading in the West is absolutely enormous at the moment. It is not just in building aircraft, it is in providing engines for aircraft for example. And that is an incredibly difficult engineering task to do, and a lot of that technology came out of the military in the first place, it is really inconceivable, that in any kind of foreseeable time frame, that the Chinese will be building their own engines which will be economically competitive with those coming out of the West.

There will be decades before China can realize its ambition to mount a serious, big jet challenge to the global dominance of Boeing and Airbus. But with more than a trillion dollars in plane sales expected globally in the next 20 years, it is easy to see why China is keen to get on board.