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Of the original users of the Tu-16 series of medium jet bombers, China is the only user still maintaining a large fleet of these as the Xi'an-built H-6. Although Egypt also maintains a small fleet of Tu-16KS anti-ship missile carriers, other users like Iraq, Indonesia and the states within the former Soviet Union have all retired their operational examples of this 1950s-design bomber. Yet while this bomber can be considered as obsolete against a modern air defence, the PRC is currently engaged in an extensive remanufacturing program, and might even have resumed producing new airframes.

The origins of the H-6 can be traced back to 1956, when the Soviet Union agreed that it would help China to build a medium bomber force. The idea behind this was that the USSR would command a combined USSR-PRC nuclear force, something which later proved unacceptable for the Chinese. A license agreement for Tu-16 bombers was signed in 1957, and two years later the first parts for assembly in Harbin arrived from the Soviets. Apart from these, two Soviet-built Tu-16s were flown in to serve as pattern aircraft. The first H-6 built from Soviet parts flew only 67 days after manufacture started, on September 27th 1959. After factory acceptance trials, this aircraft went to the PLAAF just like a second prototype built with Soviet parts. One of these was later modified as a nuclear bomber with an airconditioned bombbay and special bomb mountings. A nuclear bomb was dropped by this aircraft at the Lop Nor test site on May 14, 1965.

Production got seriously delayed when the CCP decided that H-6 production should be concentrated at Xi'an, while Harbin would start working on a reverse-engineered Il-28 under the designation H-5 because the plant at Harbin already had a major Il-28 rework facility. Moving H-6 production to Xi'an however ment that some 3000 engineers had to be moved, as well as the already delivered documents and tools. This entire program lasted until 1964, by which time it was realised that a large part of the necessary technical documentation was missing. The PRC was quick to blame this on the Soviets with which relations had seriously deteriorated by then. It is nevertheless equally possible that the relocation of the H-6 production caused the loss of these documents.

To retrieve this data, the existing H-6es built with Soviet parts, together with the two Tu-16s were taken apart and studied with the intention to reverse-engineer them. Over ten years after the first flight of a Badger built in the PRC, a prototype of the H-6 built with only Chinese parts took to the air. To distinguish this from the origian two Harbin-built H-6es, these got the designation H-6A. Deliveries of aircraft built to this standard were delivered to operational PLAAF and PLAN units from 1970 on. It is not known if all of these are equipped with the airconditioned bombbay and other nuclear modifications, although some sources suggest that these are officially referred to as H-6II.

Although certainly an improvement in China's military inventory, operationally the H-6A was rather dissapointing. It's navigation was almost completely dependant on ground stations, simply because no improvements had been added to the mid-1950s systems acquired from the Soviets. Under the designation H-6III a prototype was flown in 1975, equipped with a navigation computer, a doppler radar and inertial navigation equipment as main additions. It lasted until 1982 however before these modifications were applied to operational aircraft and taken up in production aircraft, which all retained the H-6A designation within the PLA.

Only when H-6 production was full and running, a version for stand-off weapons was put in development. Intended to carry two YJ-6/C-601 antiship missiles on underwing pylons was the H-6D. Development started in 1975, which focused mainly on the radar aboard the Badger tasked with finding and locking onto a target. This radar is located in a larger chin radome, which makes the H-6D easily recognisable. Another feature unique to this variant is the small winged antennae in front of the cockpit windscreen, which probably serves as a command link between the missile and the aircraft. Production started around 1980, and it was with this version that a small export success was achieved when four were sold to Iraq under the designation B-6D. With this variant, production ended in about 1992.