President Trump’s decision this week to restrict the export of American aerospace technology to China follows years of rising anxiety in Washington about the role of American companies in helping China build a competitor to Boeing.
In 2008, China established the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or COMAC, with the goal of putting a single-aisle commercial jet into service by 2016.
Development of the plane has been slow. The company, which occupies a large expanse of newly built hangars and design studios in Shanghai, suffered delays despite extensive assistance from American and European companies. Its plane, the C919, did not go into commercial service until 2023.
Still, Beijing takes great pride in the C919. State media describes it as one of the country’s “pillars of a great power” with “technology to help civil aviation development and achieve military-civilian integration.”
The C919 is also a symbol of an earlier era in Sino-American relations, when many in the United States hoped that closer economic cooperation would lead to more democracy in China and a lessening of geopolitical tensions. When Beijing set up COMAC, American and European companies rushed into partnerships to help it build the C919.
But the political backdrop has changed drastically in the years since Xi Jinping became China’s top leader in 2012. Mr. Xi has overseen a rapid military buildup and a more assertive policy on Taiwan, the South China Sea and other potential flash points.
Some in Washington now contend that COMAC’s joint ventures facilitate the theft of industrial secrets and undermine American national security. “Almost the entire makeup of the C919 is stolen technology from numerous aviation and technology industries from around the world,” said William R. Evanina, a former director of the United States National Counterintelligence and Security Center, in congressional testimony in 2023.
COMAC did not reply to calls and faxes for comment.
At least 40 percent of the C919 is made by companies in the United States and other countries in the West. The Trump administration has not yet released the details of the new limits on exports of American aerospace technologies.
Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, criticized on Friday the Trump administration’s action. “The relevant practices of the United States are overstretching the concept of national security, turning trade and tech into political issues and tools, and are a malicious blockade and suppression of China — we firmly oppose it and will firmly safeguard our legitimate rights and interests,” he said at a news briefing.
The C919 is similar to an Airbus A320, a popular single-aisle jet made by the European aviation manufacturer. It also competes with the Boeing 737.
In recent years, China has bought more planes from Airbus after becoming wary of buying Boeing aircraft. China saw how the United States stopped providing spare Boeing parts to Russia after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and feared becoming too tied to the American manufacturer. But the C919 also depends on engines and other key components controlled by the United States, a point underlined by Mr. Trump’s action this week.
COMAC had put only 16 C919s into service by the start of this year, but is now ramping up production and has amassed close to 1,000 orders. The orders have come mainly from state-controlled Chinese airlines. Some have been placed by developing countries that are closely tied to Beijing through Chinese loans for economic development.
China has shared limited information about the plane, which only mainland China and Hong Kong have approved for use.
Florian Guillermet, the executive director of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, told a French business magazine in April that it might take another three to six years before his agency would be ready to certify the plane for use. The Federal Aviation Administration in the United States also has not certified it.
China is now the world’s leading producer of technologies ranging from electric cars to solar panels. But commercial aircraft, with their complex systems and requirements for utmost safety, have proven a formidable challenge for China.
The many delays for the C919 make it “a testimony to how hard it is to develop and certify civil aircraft,” said Martin Craigs, the president emeritus of the Aerospace Forum Asia, an aircraft industry group.
General Electric in particular has played a central role on the C919. It has worked with a Chinese military contractor to supply avionics computers for navigation, communication and controls. And a G.E. joint venture with Safran Aircraft Engines of France supplies the plane’s jet engines.
G.E. did not respond to requests for comment.
Less than two years after COMAC was founded, when the C919 was still a distant dream, General Electric agreed to a partnership with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, or AVIC, a leading Chinese defense contractor. General Electric shared its most advanced commercial avionics with AVIC for the C919, the same state-of-the-art system it had just developed for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner jet.
General Electric and AVIC worked together on equipping the C919 with an advanced computer core processing system. AVIC has also developed China’s most advanced bombers and its latest stealth fighter jets. It does much of its production in Xi’an, the hub of China’s military aircraft manufacturing industry.
General Electric said in 2011 that its partnership with AVIC to work on the C919 would create $300 million in exports from Michigan, Ohio and Florida and would support 300 American jobs. The company said that it had briefed the commerce, defense and state departments on the deal’s details, but wanted to share in whatever commercial success the C919 might enjoy.
“We can participate in that or sit on the sidelines — we’re not about sitting on the sidelines.” said John Rice, who was the company’s vice chairman but has since retired. “This venture is a strategic move that we made after some thought and consideration, with a company we know.”
But building the C919 proved much harder than COMAC anticipated. The plane’s first public flight test was in May 2017, a year after it was supposed to go into service.
Most of the initial C919s are operated by China Eastern Airlines. In 2020, China Eastern set up a separate brand, OTT Airlines, to operate the C919 and a smaller plane COMAC was also building. China Eastern merged OTT Airlines, which stood for One Two Three Airlines, into its regular operations last September after the COMAC planes had proven themselves.
China Eastern began flying the plane regularly to Hong Kong in January. Those flights have given the airline a chance to test the aircraft’s communications and other systems on an international route. Hong Kong is largely outside mainland China’s air traffic control system, a legacy of its history as a British possession until its return to mainland China’s control in 1997.
Li You contributed research.
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.
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