China’s GJ-X stealth drone has just taken flight—and with it, its unmanned ambitions are soaring into the Pacific power game.
This month, The War Zone (TWZ) reported that China’s latest stealth drone, unofficially dubbed the GJ-X, appears to have been spotted in flight for the first time. The aircraft, characterized by its massive “cranked kite” flying-wing design, was initially revealed in satellite imagery from China’s test base near Malan in Xinjiang province in September.
Estimated to span approximately 42 meters, the GJ-X belongs to a rare class of large uncrewed stealth platforms. The newly surfaced footage shows a similarly configured drone airborne, featuring split rudders and a likely twin-engine setup, with a counter-shaded underside paint scheme designed to obscure its shape at altitude.
Analysts remain divided on its intended role, debating whether it serves as a long-range reconnaissance platform akin to the US RQ-180, an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) or a stealth bomber. The drone’s emergence follows a surge in Chinese stealth aircraft development, including the J-36 and J-XDS tailless fighters, underscoring China’s rapid progress in advanced aerial capabilities.
While the GJ-X’s operational purpose remains unconfirmed, its scale and design suggest multi-role potential, reflecting China’s strategic ambition to expand its high-end unmanned arsenal amid growing regional and global defense competition.
If China had taken cues from the US RQ-180 drone, its mission and capabilities might indicate how China intends to use its GJ-X as a long-range reconnaissance platform. According to a TWZ report from July 2024, the RQ-180 is a stealthy, high-altitude, long-endurance surveillance drone built to penetrate heavily defended airspace where the U-2 and RQ-4 cannot operate.
The report states that the RQ-180 is designed for deep reconnaissance against near-peer adversaries like China and Russia, combining radar-evading shaping with extended range and persistence, allowing it to quietly “soak up” intelligence for hours without detection. Beyond reconnaissance, the report notes it may serve as an electronic warfare and communications relay node, linking dispersed forces across contested environments.
Similar to the RQ-180, China’s GJ-X could operate from coastal bases, such as Ledong and Foluo at Hainan, monitoring broad swathes of the South China Sea, further north up to Taiwan, and into the broad expanses of the Pacific, providing critical targeting data while monitoring US and allied forces.
Beyond the Pacific, China could use the GJ-X in the Himalayan region in its ongoing border dispute with India. Still, it isn’t clear if the type’s sensor suite is optimized for maritime or overland operations.
Should the GJ-X turn out to be a UCAV, Malcolm Davis mentions in a September 2025 article for The Strategist that the lower acquisition and operating costs typically associated with unmanned aircraft may enable China to generate great mass in operations involving such aircraft.
Davis notes that the GJ-X, when paired with hypersonic weapons alongside air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs), ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) and sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs), could significantly boost China’s ability to threaten forward-deployed US and allied bases and naval forces.
Davis mentions that the GJ-X could be used as a nuclear delivery platform, which could improve possible deficiencies in the air-based leg of China’s triad. While the H-6 strategic bomber is the cornerstone of China’s air-based nuclear arsenal, its lack of stealth features and limited range without aerial refueling may be a significant handicap.
Although the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) 2024 China Military Power Report (CMPR) states that China has been developing the H-20 stealth bomber with a range of over 10,000 kilometers—allowing it to operate deep into the Second Island Chain, with aerial refueling providing it with global range—the aircraft won’t enter service until the 2030s.
A stealth drone such as the GJ-X may partially fill in the penetrating deep strike capabilities that the H-20 is supposed to provide. However, using an unmanned platform for nuclear weapons delivery brings several issues.
One of the strengths of manned strategic bombers over other nuclear delivery platforms, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), is that they are inherently flexible.
They can be rerouted towards their targets or retargeted as soon as new flight or targeting data comes in, or recalled back to base should the mission be suddenly cancelled. That flexibility stems from the fact that in manned strategic bombers, nuclear weapons are always under human control, right up until the moment of release.
Entrusting such sensitive decisions to AI opens up a lot of sensitive issues. In a September 2024 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) paper, Vladislav Chernavskikh warns that integrating advanced AI into nuclear command and control introduces serious escalation risks, particularly if opaque or unreliable systems influence time-sensitive decisions.
He notes that the lack of interpretability, vulnerability to cyberattacks and potential overreliance on AI outputs could lead to misjudgments in crisis scenarios, undermining human oversight and raising profound strategic and ethical concerns.
It is perhaps because of these reasons that the US kept its B-21 stealth bomber as a manned design, considering the limitations, implications and risks of using unmanned platforms for nuclear weapons delivery. Also, consistent with those caveats, the GJ-X may serve as a testbed for technologies that could be deployed on the H-20 stealth bomber, which is likely to be a manned design.
Still, the debut of China’s GJ-X, along with other types such as the GJ-11 Sharp Sword UCAV and Type B stealth unmanned fighter that can be deployed en masse against US and allied forces in the Pacific, throws the spotlight on the quality of US and allied counter-drone defenses.
In a September 2025 report for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Stacie Pettyjohn and Molly Campbell warn that US defenses remain poorly scaled and insufficiently integrated to counter large drone swarms fielded by China.
Pettyjohn and Campbell point out that despite advances in radar, directed-energy and high-power microwave research, few systems have reached operational maturity, leaving gaps in layered defense. They add that current counter-drone networks lack depth, cost-effective interceptors and AI-enabled command systems needed to defeat autonomous swarms.
They stress that without rapidly fielding emerging technologies such as high-power microwaves (HPMs) and passive sensors, US forces risk being overwhelmed in a future Pacific war with China over Taiwan.
The debut flight of China’s GJ-X stealth drone represents more than just a milestone in unmanned aviation; it highlights its growing efforts to deploy autonomous, long-range strike and surveillance systems capable of transforming the Pacific battlespace.
As swarms of advanced Chinese drones take to the skies of the Pacific, the real challenge for the US and its allies will be how quickly they can develop integrated, scalable and intelligent defenses to counter not only today’s machines but also the AI-driven, unmanned warfare of the future.
