Juliana Liu, Columnist

China Must Solve a Puzzle to Take on Airbus and Boeing

February 9, 2026 at 8:00 PM UTC

Corrected

February 10, 2026 at 12:45 AM UTC

Juliana Liu is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion's Asia team, covering corporate strategy and management in the region. She was previously CNN's senior business editor for Asia, and a correspondent at BBC News and Reuters.

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Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

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China has never been shy about its commercial aviation ambitions. For decades, it has wanted to be the “C” in the ABCs of aerospace after Airbus SE and Boeing Co. But to achieve that goal, it must solve an engineering puzzle that only a handful of companies have ever cracked: building a reliable jet engine.

The risks of not doing so are evident — 2025 was supposed to have been the year that Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd., a state-owned aerospace manufacturer leading the self-sufficiency push, finally proved itself to be a potential contender. After delivering just 12 of its flagship C919 single-aisle jets in 2024, it announced an amped up schedule last March: 75 planes.