Have to apologize, I meant to say their first SLBM is not expected to 2010, I was having another conversation with someone on this subject and it was implied in my response they new I was talking about submarine launched missiles.
They do have land launched ballistic missiles the quantity and quality of which are open to debate.
As to the sunburn, they can only be launched by the Hangzhou
Type 956 destroyer which is what they have bought from Russia (it was their Sovremenny class destroyer). They only have 2 of them. They do plan to get another 2 and may get them by 2010. They only carry 8 sunburns. One Arleigh Burke destroyer has 96 VLS launch cells, capable of a wide variety of missiles.
As to the sunburn itself, it is not considered state of the art. It has also never been in combat so it has no record. As a former EW I can tell you it's nothing something that would scare me. Respect it yes, but let it intimidate me, no. For the sake of reference did you see the article posted here about 2 CIWS Phalanx guns brought to Iraq? Same gun as the USN uses for CIWS. It's there because it can hit mortars in flight.
As to the SU-30 our F-15s and F-18s can handle them. Our AMRAAMS and AWACS are second to none. The Chinese by the way have no AWACS. So they will not have any "help" when they try to take us on. They will not have the ability to vector aircraft correctly for maximum benefit. They are also about 15 years behind us in EW.
There is nothing France from selling AWACS eventually. There is nothing stopping Russia from selling them and alot of other high tech weapons.
Our F-15s didn't do so well against the Su-29s? in the Indian AF...they didn't use the 30 models that they had. So, our aircraft are not invincible to good tactics and comparable aircraft...the 29s and 30 are much better at dogfighting and maneuvering than our aircraft...If China used J-8 to keep us busy, J10s and Su-30s could put us into some sticky situations.