China and Russia are developing capabilities to counter and surpass the air power of the Western alliance, a British defence official warned on Wednesday. “Thirty years ago, the UK and its Western allies appeared unchallenged in the air domain,” said Jeremy Quin, Britain’s minister for defence procurement, in reference to the first Gulf War in 1991. “Today our adversaries have caught up. But a major national and international endeavour is now underway,” he told the Combat Air Power conference hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defence think tank. Quin said that, since the 1991 Gulf War, “the likes of Russia and China have studied our strengths in the air and begun developing the capabilities to not only counter but surpass us.” “We’ve seen China build multiple highly effective systems that challenge Western warfighting. Producing J-20 fifth generation fighters, Y-20 heavy transport aircraft, armed stealth UAVs [unmanned aerial …