enthusiastic chinese waved and shouted sunday from shanghai’s hongqiao international airport as the first homegrown passenger jet took off for its maiden commercial voyage china hopes the c919 a narrowbody aircraft designed by the commercial aircraft corporation of china or comac will first compete with boeing’s ba 737 max and airbus’s 0kvv air a320 and eventually break the decadeslong duopoly of those western industry leaders the c919 flight run by china eastern airlines 670 cheaf  left shanghai and arrived at beijing’s capital airport two hours later with state television streaming the event and observers gathered for the departure and arrival in a video posted on chinese social media a man could be heard saying “look at that beautiful” while two fire trucks sprayed the airliner with water cannons in a celebratory welcome shanghaibased documentary maker christian petersenclausen was among the first foreign customers to ride on the c919 on a tuesday flight and said he was struck by the level of excitement at the airport on the plane and online “i saw a lot of pride and joy and i think folks see it as a milestone” he told marketwatch not only is the aircraft a source of tremendous esteem for regular chinese it is another sign that the country is moving up the industrial ladder toward assembling hightechnology products at a time of increasing concern from neighbors and western countries that see china’s rise as a threat to geopolitical stability but getting the jet airborne wasn’t easy with a slew of manufacturing setbacks that have made its production a 16year slog moreover many of its key parts are still produced in the west mostly from the us a country that appears keen to squeeze china’s ability to acquire highlevel technology add to that the fact that financial struggles continue for china’s biggest carriers including china eastern which will run the first daily route of the c919 between the cities of chengdu and shanghai the “big three” stateowned players air china 601111 and china southern airlines 600029 1055 chkif  alongside china eastern lost a combined 86 billion yuan 12 billion in this year’s first quarter according to company filings part of the problem appears to be attributable to china’s slow crawl back after the pandemic to allowing overseas flights which are mostly run by bigger carriers while smaller competitors focus on domestic regional routes according to public flight data china’s smaller private carriers also lowered their prices in the first quarter while the stateowned giants generally did not the government’s fingerprints appeared discernible in february several carriers told chinese financialnews outlet caixin that the powerful stateowned assets supervision and administration commission actually restricted seven stateowned airlines from steeply cutting prices on major routes as a result the private carriers are thriving in the quarter that the big stateowned airlines bled cash the three leading private carriers all reported strong profits and revenue that robust performance came after a crippling 2022 for the three carriers spring airlines 601021  hainan airlines 600221 and juneyao airlines 603885  speaking to reporters tuesday from a boeing factory in south carolina the us company’s chief executive officer dave calhoun said comac’s new c919 “is a good airplane” but he shrugged off the prospect of competition from china he said china simply doesn’t have the production capacity to meet the needs of such a vast country last year boeing forecast that china’s commercial fleet will double in number by 2041 adding 8485 new aircraft to match passenger demand “the good news for everybody is that three providers in a growing global market of this size and scale should not be the most intimidating thought in the world” calhoun said comac’s fate may also depend on how harshly american policy seeks to punish china’s tech rise in 2021 thenpresident donald trump temporarily added comac to a blacklist of entities owned or controlled by the chinese military after previously saying he supported selling usmade jet parts to china later lists did not include comac in april us sens marco rubio and rick scott both florida republicans sent a letter to the us department of commerce demanding that comac be blacklisted so far it has not been china is seeking to gradually wean itself off its huge dependency on foreign parts for its commercial aircraft the c919 is particularly vulnerable in its engines which are supplied by a tieup between us firm ge ge and france’s safran saf safry  currently these are the only engines suitable for the c919 so china has few options if it were denied this vital and difficulttomake part american views of china have plummeted in recent years here’s what the chinese think of the us china is not only asserting itself geopolitically but openly questioning the us’s central role on the world stage foreign businesses in china fear they’re being targeted in a ‘campaign’ of government crackdowns it’s probably not that simple