New Delhi: Days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Beijing to attend the G-20 Summit, China's top secret stealth fighter, the J-20, has been spotted in the Tibetan region.
According to reports, the J-20 was spotted at the Daocheng Yading airport in the high-altitude Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture which lies to the east of Arunachal Pradesh.
The image of the stealth fighter - one of China's most closely guarded military projects – appeared on Twitter.
The news was also carried out by two defence websites - www.abovetopsecret.com and www.alert5.com - days after China warned India against deploying the supersonic BrahMos missile along the Himalayas.
However, the Indian Army has rejected China's concerns over BrahMos missile deployment, saying "Our threat perceptions and security concerns are our own, and how we address these by deploying assets on our territory should be no one else's concern."
Interestingly, PM Modi is due to hold talks tomorrow in Vietnam, a country with a stated interest in the BrahMos missile, which can strike targets on land and at sea more than 290 km away.
The image of the J-20 shows the fighter covered in tarpaulin at the Daocheng Yading airport, which is located at an altitude of more than 14,000 feet, making it the world's highest civilian airport.
The deployment of the J-20 to the air base also shows that the fighter can operate from extreme high-altitude air fields, where the reduced density of air severely restricts the amount of fuel and ordnance that can be carried when the aircraft takes off.
India does not operate any stealth aircraft at present.
