Trust in Transition: Why Global Aviation Is Starting to Fly on Chinese Certification

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When Brunei quietly announced that it would recognize the airworthiness rules of China’s Civil Aviation Administration, it seemed like a bureaucratic footnote. But the decision is a bellwether. By accepting CAAC certification as valid within its own jurisdiction, Brunei effectively declared that it trusts Chinese aviation regulators as much as those in Europe or the United States. It is the first Southeast Asian country to make that leap, and it will not be the last. Vietnam has already signaled that it is open to importing aircraft certified under Chinese standards. Together, these decisions point to an emerging reality. Over the coming decades, CAAC certifications for passenger cargo jets and equally importantly electric and hybrid aircraft are likely to be accepted almost everywhere except in Europe and the United States.

This is not only a regulatory story. It is about how industrial scale, infrastructure, and market gravity combine to shift global trust. For decades, the FAA and EASA have been the arbiters of what flies and what does not. Smaller nations, unable to afford their own extensive certification programs, have long accepted their approvals automatically. That hierarchy made sense when most aircraft were Western-built and Western-maintained. But as China grows into the world’s largest domestic aviation market, manufactures its own airliners, certifies its own electric aircraft, and builds airports around the world, the center of credibility is moving.

Brunei’s decision illustrates this in miniature. Its new airline, GallopAir, has ordered thirty aircraft from China’s COMAC, including models in development. The acceptance of CAAC standards allows those planes to enter service without waiting years for a second validation from Western regulators. For a small country trying to modernize aviation quickly, it is a practical choice. For China, it is a strategic victory. Recognition from one nation becomes precedent for another, creating a network of trust that grows outward from Asia. Vietnam’s recent decree allowing import of aircraft from China, in addition to those certified in Europe or the United States, is the next link in the chain.

China’s influence over aviation extends well beyond aircraft manufacturing. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese firms have financed or constructed roughly sixty airports overseas. Most are in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, where new facilities are paired with training and equipment agreements. These projects bring Chinese aviation infrastructure, data systems, and maintenance standards into the daily operations of partner nations. It is one thing to buy aircraft from Airbus or Boeing. It is another to have the runways, terminals, and logistics platforms designed to accommodate Chinese systems. Over time, this creates an ecosystem where CAAC oversight is a normal part of aviation rather than an exception.

At home, China has built an impressive record of certifying new kinds of aircraft faster than its Western peers. The EHang EH216-S, a fully electric autonomous aerial vehicle, has both a type certificate and a production certificate from the CAAC, allowing commercial flights in China. The AutoFlight CarryAll, a two-ton cargo eVTOL, received its type certificate in 2024. In early 2025, the RX4E, a four-seat electric airplane developed by Liaoning General Aviation Academy, became the first certified electric fixed-wing aircraft in the country. Each project adds to the CAAC’s regulatory experience and normalizes electric propulsion in commercial service.

By comparison, the FAA and EASA are still in early stages of certifying electric and hybrid systems. Europe’s regulators have detailed frameworks such as SC-VTOL and SC E-19, and certified the battery electric version of the two-seater Pipistrel as a trainer, but the process remains slow. The FAA has created special conditions for powered-lift aircraft like Joby’s eVTOL and for electric engines such as those made by magniX, yet no type certificate for a fully electric passenger aircraft exists in the United States. The difference is tempo. China certifies through direct engagement with projects, issuing special conditions for each program and allowing incremental expansion of capability. Western agencies prioritize procedural thoroughness, often at the expense of time.

That difference is magnified by China’s dominance in drones. Roughly 70 to 90% of the world’s commercial drones are Chinese-made. Companies like DJI and XAG have turned aerial spraying, seeding, and mapping into everyday agricultural tools. One-third of China’s farmland is now serviced by drones, and the same technologies are being adapted for logistics, inspection, and construction. The heavy-lift segment is advancing quickly. Cargo drones capable of carrying 2 to 3 tons have been tested, and hybrid-electric propulsion is being introduced for longer range operations. Shenzhen alone records hundreds of thousands of low-altitude drone flights annually across established routes. Each of these operations runs under CAAC supervision, giving regulators an enormous data set and unmatched operational experience in unmanned flight.

The drone industry also underpins China’s national goal of developing a “low-altitude economy.” This policy targets the airspace below roughly 1,000 meters for economic activity ranging from delivery drones and crop sprayers to eVTOL taxis—China is not immune from this distraction, although their eHang at least doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a rotorcraft—and short-range cargo aircraft. The CAAC’s Unmanned Operations Management System now tracks more than a million drones and integrates with the national air traffic system. It is not a fully automated airspace control network yet, but it is a functioning backbone. Combined with 5G and satellite navigation, it allows near real-time management of dense low-altitude traffic. No other country has deployed such a system at comparable scale.

All of this rests on a domestic aviation market that is still expanding rapidly. China already operates the world’s second-largest passenger fleet and is on track to overtake the United States within a decade. Every C919 and ARJ21 that enters service strengthens COMAC’s position and builds the CAAC’s statistical credibility. Reliability demonstrated across millions of flight hours inside China becomes proof of safety for other regulators. It was the same process that made Boeing and Airbus globally trusted: repetition, scale, and consistent results.

When I first started outlined a regional air mobility maturity model a few years ago, I was trying to make sense of where electric and hybrid flight was actually advancing, not where marketing departments said it was. The model tracks three interdependent layers: the aircraft themselves, autonomy, and digital traffic management. Each needs to reach maturity before regional air mobility becomes truly transformative. By that measure, Europe leads in certification frameworks and structured process. EASA’s SC-VTOL and SC E-19 have given a clear pathway for electric and hybrid aircraft, although far too much attention has been paid to the mostly dead end of passenger carrying EVTOLs, but operational deployment is still slow. The United States has excellent research and strong private-sector projects, once again with far too much money and time spent on EVTOLs for the 1%, yet its regulatory structure is fragmented. The FAA’s powered-lift classification is a useful patch, not a long-term system. Both regions treat autonomy and digital traffic control as distant futures.

China is in a different position. Its electric and hybrid aircraft are already flying under CAAC certification. Its autonomy programs are advancing through the same ecosystem that manages millions of drone flights each year. And its low-altitude economy initiative is building the digital traffic backbone that will eventually merge manned and unmanned operations. On the maturity model, Europe is methodical, the United States is cautious, and China is accelerating through live deployment. By the early 2030s, the aggregate maturity curve will tilt further eastward, not because China moves faster in theory, but because it is already doing the work at scale.

In Shenzhen, the low-altitude economy is no longer an experiment but an operating system. Hundreds of drone routes cross the city daily, carrying medical supplies, e-commerce parcels, and industrial parts between rooftops and logistics centers. Operators like Meituan, SF Express, and EHang run thousands of short-range flights under CAAC authorization, many of them fully autonomous and beyond visual line of sight. Shenzhen’s air corridors are integrated with its 5G network and monitored through real-time data links, a model now being studied by other cities. It is fitting that this happens here. Shenzhen is already the world’s laboratory for electrification, home to BYD’s electric buses and taxis, NIO’s innovation offices, and some of the largest EV battery plants on earth. The same ecosystem that made electric mobility inevitable on the ground is now extending it into the air.

Meanwhile, the long shadow over the FAA is no longer just about Boeing. The two 737 MAX crashes shattered the automatic trust that other regulators once placed in American certification. Before 2019, the FAA’s type certificate was a global passport. Afterward, EASA, Transport Canada, and several Asian regulators refused to simply accept the FAA’s assurances, conducting their own reviews instead. Each new Boeing quality issue since then, from assembly lapses to door plug failures, has deepened that skepticism, just as GE’s unforced failures contributed to it being removed from the Dow Jones Index, then split into three unrelated firms. The problem is not technical capacity but credibility. The FAA delegated too much oversight to manufacturers and became captive to the firms it was meant to regulate. That loss of independence undermined its reputation as the world’s gold standard in airworthiness. As other regulators expand their own expertise, the FAA’s authority will remain diminished until it reestablishes public confidence that its certifications are earned, not negotiated.

When I wrote about COMAC’s long game, I argued that decoupling the C919 from U.S. components is not just a supply chain adjustment but a strategic act of sovereignty. The aircraft’s early versions rely heavily on Western systems, from LEAP engines to avionics suites sourced through joint ventures, but China’s direction of travel is clear. Every redesign cycle substitutes a domestic equivalent, even if it adds cost or delay. The intent is to make future models independent of U.S. export controls and political leverage. That same approach underpins the CAAC’s international ambitions. A regulator cannot project authority if its domestic airliners depend on parts that Washington can ground with a pen stroke. As COMAC closes the loop on propulsion, flight controls, and electronics, CAAC certification becomes fully sovereign—and therefore more exportable. Global acceptance will follow not because other countries are swayed by politics, but because they see a complete, self-contained system operating reliably at scale.

For existing aerospace manufacturers, this trend is a warning. The global map of regulatory trust is changing. If CAAC certification becomes recognized across much of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, it will grant Chinese aircraft access to markets that Western firms once took for granted. For electric and hybrid aircraft especially, the momentum lies with China, and progress-delaying inertia with the West. Certification systems designed for gas turbines and aluminum airframes struggle to adapt to battery packs, distributed propulsion, and autonomy. China’s regulators, working closely with domestic manufacturers, are already certifying and operating those designs at home.

The implication is that trust will shift toward where the activity is. As CAAC-certified aircraft accumulate flight hours, as more airports are built under Chinese partnerships, and as more countries align their rules with China’s, a new standard of airworthiness will emerge. Western regulators will remain central to their own jurisdictions, but their global influence will decline unless they modernize rapidly. Airworthiness, once the exclusive domain of Europe and America, is becoming multipolar.

Brunei’s decision may look minor today, but it signals a profound realignment in aviation. Certification is not just paperwork; it is a statement of faith in an entire industrial system. When smaller nations begin to look to Beijing rather than Washington or Brussels for that assurance, it means they have seen competence, scale, and reliability in action. The next generation of aircraft—jets, electric, hybrid, and autonomous—will not all carry Western stamps of approval. Many will fly under CAAC certification, backed by the operational record of the world’s largest aviation market. While the U.S. FAA is deeply unlikely to acknowledge CAAC certification, Europe’s EASA has a much greater likelihood of accepting it in the coming decades, especially if the United States continues to degrade its position on the world stage.

The future of flight will be certified where it is built, flown, and trusted most. For the coming decades, that place is likely to be China.