Sweeping reforms of the Chinese aerospace sector will present the global industry with a team of focused competitors with specialties ranging from airliners to engines to fighters. The country has cast aside the ambiguous structure under which Avic 1 and Avic 2 each loosely managed a range of plants that did not often cooperate closely with each other. Instead, the Avics have been merged into a single company called Avic and, most importantly, factories and research institutes have been bundled into subsidiaries with much narrowly focused businesses.

China will build a small turbofan to propel itself into the business of integrating and manufacturing complete civil aero-engines. The 7,100- to 8,800-pound powerplant from one subsidiary of Chinese aircraft conglomerate Avic is aimed at a small business jet proposed by another, responsible for general aviation.

TAIWANESE TREMORS: The Taiwanese military is maintaining its longstanding opposition to commercial airlines taking the shortest route between the island and mainland China, with officials citing the need to guard against surprise air attack. Defense Minister Gen. Chen Chao-ming says he supports the policy of charter flights that don’t go through the sensitive restricted zone in the Taiwan Strait.