Category The Chinese Air Force

Aerospace coercion is a possible form of PRC action against Taiwan. As noted by the U. S. Department of Defense, the PLA may use ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and precision-guided weapons to strike Taiwan’s air defense systems, including air bases, radar sites, missiles, space assets, and communi­cations facilities, so as to degrade Taiwan’s defenses, neutralize Taiwan’s leader­ship, and break the Taiwan people’s will to fight. As well, the PLA could employ airpower and some of its ground forces, to target Taiwan’s surface, under­ground, sea-going, and underwater military targets and infrastructure.35 Mod­ern airpower has the ability to seize the initiative and decide a war’s outcome swiftly and irrevocably. In the case of a PLA move against Taiwan, only by massive air and missile operations can the PLA ensure its ability to land forces and secure a lodgment area. Air strikes, which in the precision era can result in swift degradation of an opponent’s military strength and potential, could include attacks targeting Taiwan’s air assets, to prevent them from attacking PLA forces; Taiwan’s command and control facilities; naval and army forces that could counter a PLA amphibious assault; and Taiwan’s overall warfighting potential and the morale of the populace.36

PLAAF military education emphasizes integration of systematic and specialized, stressing the promotion of personnel development based on PLAAF development needs. Basic level command schools empha­size the complete development of student technical skills and knowl­edge, promoting military specialty education with particular stress on foundational theory, knowledge, and skills for the specialty. Mid-level command schools promote occupational education, stressing essential education and innovative abilities to develop suitable command talents.26

Historically, PLAAF education and training programs have focused on providing military job skills training and this remains true today, although there is evidence that PLAAF is committed to broadening the educational experiences of its officers and NCOs. The quote above, from the 2007 publica­tion The Science of Air Force Military Education and Training, stresses that the emphasis is on “development based on PLAAF development needs” and “devel­opment of student technical skills and knowledge, promoting military specialty education.” This principle reflects the operational and developmental consid­erations of a service that was born during the Korean War, when the urgent task was to recruit young men with enough education to rapidly assimilate the training before launching off to war. PLAAF military schools continue in this tradition today—although new programs encouraging broader and deeper lev­els of academic education are beginning to emerge.

As previously mentioned, the Shenyang Aircraft Factory refused Soviet assistance on the J-6A and set out to manufacture the required tooling domes­tically.61 These efforts were not particularly successful; production was halted at various times as the result of poor quality manufacturing and the PLAAF refused to fly the J-6A until improvements were made.62 Under the guidance of SAF vice general secretary Wang Qigong and vice chief technician Luo Shida, a document was drafted outlining 10 standards to follow in the second series of J-6 prototype production.63 With better quality control procedures in place, SAF was able to finally produce a J-6 prototype which met state standards for mass production in 1963. Once mass production was approved, the Nanchang

Aircraft Factory (NAF) began manufacturing the J-6. This required NAF to convert from a propeller aircraft factory to one that produced jet fighters.64

Improvements to J-6 production quickly eroded with the onset of the Cultural Revolution. Aircraft designers and engineers were among the group of “intellectuals” targeted in the mass movement, and their marginalization along with a number of other technical issues plagued China’s defense indus­tries.65 By the early 1970s, hundreds of substandard J-6s had to be dismantled and rebuilt (to the tune of millions of yuan).66 Though the J-6 and J-7 repre­sent the height of Chinese advancement in terms of the serial production of military aircraft during this time period, efforts continued to improve upon previous J-5, J-5A, and JJ-5 designs. These improvements were for the most part cosmetic (the lengthening of a fuselage, relocation of components, etc.) and though Chinese writings are sanguine about the progress made, there was very little in the way of actual innovation.

Bomber production made some modest advances during this period, with a domestically manufactured Xian H-6 medium bomber taking to the air on December 24, 1968, and serial production beginning shortly thereaf­ter.67 Efforts to produce the H-6 were delayed significantly by the withdrawal of Soviet advisors, but Chinese engineers were eventually able to use the plans and tooling to successfully produce the bomber. Chinese serial production of the H-6 was a notable achievement for the military aviation industry, but the aircraft was based on the Tupolev Tu-16 Badger, which had been in service with the Soviet air force since 1954.68 The H-6 has remained China’s mainstay bomber over the decades with modified versions of the aircraft comprising the bulk of the PLAAF bomber fleet even today.

A full-scale amphibious invasion is obviously the most serious form of military action the PRC could undertake against Taiwan, and would constitute a military “culminating point” in the relationship between the two entities. For the PLA, full-scale invasion constitutes an ultimate solution if the PRC per­ceives its unification goal and territory threatened, or the ongoing dispute is deemed impossible to be solved in any other way. From a military perspective, it will involve neighboring countries, a sensitive interregional area, and will necessarily greatly change the international political climate and global politi­cal affairs. From a financial standpoint, an invasion would obviously affect the global economy. From a military perspective, the PRC would have to expect that Taiwan would likely be assisted by a coalition of strong enemies acting to prohibit the PRC from unifying Taiwan by force, with a high probability that PRC forces would have to fight multiple enemies, not just the forces of Taiwan.37 Under these circumstances, the PLA may employ the Second Artil­lery to undertake sustained missile bombardment, with the objective of forcing Taiwan to plead for peace before possible foreign powers can intervene, and thus creating an irreversible fait accompli before international intervention can work to thwart the PRC’s aggressive plans.38

Former Taiwan Deputy Minister of National Defense Lin Chong-pin, in an interview during a visit to London in 2009, told a Central News Agency journalist that using military force to attack Taiwan is the PRC’s final choice. To fight quickly and win quickly, he believed, the PLA will not resort to blockade, since blockades take time and provoke international outrage and intervention. Rather, he said, since 1990, the PLA has stressed quick and decisive military action, embodied in the slogan “First battle decides the war”; the PLA, he believed, would seek to launch and win an amphibious action “probably within one week”39

Since ancient times, amphibious operations have historically been extremely difficult to prosecute. Even for highly trained forces possessing asymmetric advantages in power projection, landing in the face of opposition has proven costly, even if ultimate victory has been secured. Such landings are recognized by military experts from the PRC, Taiwan, and the United States as among the most demanding and risky of all military operations.40 The U. S. Department of Defense has noted the following:41

Large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most complicated and difficult military maneuvers. Success depends upon air and sea supe­riority, rapid buildup and sustainment of supplies on shore, and unin­terrupted support. An attempt to invade Taiwan would strain China’s untested armed forces and invite international intervention. These stresses, combined with China’s combat force attrition and the complex­ity of urban warfare and counterinsurgency (assuming a successful land­ing and breakout), make amphibious invasion of Taiwan a significant political and military risk. Taiwan’s investments to harden infrastructure and strengthen defensive capabilities could also decrease Beijing’s ability to achieve its objectives.

An island landing invasion would involve joint operations by the PLA Ground Force, PLAN, PLAAF, and Second Artillery, supported by the Peo­ple’s Armed Police (PAP), PLA Reserve Force, and Militia, all acting in accor­dance with a unified joint campaign plan and command structure.42 It would involve most, and potentially all, aspects of land, sea, air, and electronic war­fare, including use of space-based assets and cyber attack. The crucial PLA challenge, obviously, would be circumventing or breaching Taiwan’s shore defenses, establishing and building a beachhead, transporting personnel and materiel to designated landing sites along Taiwan’s western coastline, and launching attacks to seize and occupy key targets or the entire island.43

PLA amphibious doctrine logically sets forth the progression of an amphibious operation in three phases: preliminary operations, embarkation and movement, and assaulting and establishing the beach-head. Each of these is addressed below, based upon Zhang Yuliang’s Science of Campaigns.44

Preliminary Operations are undertaken to paralyze an enemy’s oper­ational system, to seize the initiative in the battle, and to set the conditions for amphibious landing operations. The missions in this phase include seizing information dominance via electronic combat and cyber warfare, and air and sea dominance via a comprehensive opening air and missile strike. Informa­tion dominance of the landing battle is the critical element of seizing air and sea dominance and the initiative of battle. The purpose is to greatly reduce the opponent’s capability of electronic equipment and secure the PRC’s own elec­tronic warfare efficiency. Generally, it will start before the comprehensive fire assault, or at the same time, and will be proceeding throughout the whole battle process. Besides using airborne electronic countermeasures against Taiwan’s air defense equipment, the PLA is likely to use precisely targeted special oper­ations forces against Taiwan’s electronic infrastructures, since use of broader – effect attacks, such as electromagnetic pulse weapons (EMP) or broad-area cyber attacks, might affect the PRC as much as Taiwan.

A preliminary comprehensive raid would employ missiles and other air­borne fires to strike essential targets like command structures, air and naval bases, missile sites, and air defense systems in a sudden, massive, overwhelm­ing manner. The purpose would be to paralyze Taiwan’s military operations, incapacitate its warfighting abilities, and thereby set up favorable conditions for seizing information, air, and sea dominance. In general, this action would consist of a primary raid, and follow-up raids.45 The first raid is the most criti­cal, involving joint force attack by missiles and the service air components, par­ticularly Second Artillery and the PLAAF.

Considering likely risk, efficiency, penetration, and costs, the PLA would probably choose SRBMs to execute the first raid. The high-priority tar­gets of the raid might be SAMs, air defense radars, and fighter bases, because these targets, if untouched, could inflict heavy losses on PRC follow-on air and surface forces. The follow-on raids would be based on the result of the first raid. If the first raid degraded Taiwan’s air defenses sufficiently so that PLAAF attack aircraft could operate with relative safety, then following raids would likely use aircraft primarily. Otherwise, follow-on attacks might continue to employ SRBMs until conditions favorable for PRC air dominance over Taiwan were achieved. Once Taiwan’s integrated air defense system (IADS) had been destroyed or seriously degraded by SRBMs, the PRC’s aircraft would become more active, furnishing a more precise, flexible, functional, and efficient means to apply military force in support of PRC campaign objectives.

Thus, the type, frequency, and interval of follow-on raids depend on the assessed battle damage and recovery time of Taiwan’s air defense ability. This is, it might be noted, a very different form of air attack from that employed by coalition forces during the opening hours of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. In that case, there was essentially no pause for assessment between the first and fol­low-on strikes. Rather, following the first paralyzing strike by stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, a follow-on “gorilla package” strike was immediately undertaken.

This strike, enhanced by UAS systems mimicking manned aircraft, intimidated the surviving elements of Iraq’s air defense network into revealing themselves so that they could be jammed by EW and destroyed by coalition SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) strikes. After this second strike, Iraq had essentially lost any hope of maintaining any semblance of air control over its own territory. Non­stealthy coalition aircraft could then fly with relative impunity across Iraq for the next 6 weeks of war.46 In contrast, the PLAs writings imply a longer assessment period between the initial opening strike and follow-on attacks.

According to a RAND study, about 60-200 submunition-equipped SRBMs could temporarily neutralize most of Taiwan’s fighter bases. They could effectively suppress Taiwan air defense operations, allowing follow-on PLAAF strike aircraft to attack air bases and other targets with modern preci­sion weapons.47

Seizing air dominance by conducting surprising, fierce, continuing, and precision strikes is thus a crucial prerequisite for any landing force’s grouping, embarkation, navigation, assault, and landing. Operations would be mainly conducted by the PLAAF, and joined by the Ground Force, PLAN, and Sec­ond Artillery, suppressing the enemy on the ground or jointly destroying the enemy in the air.48 Unless Taiwan’s air defense assets are mobile, bombproof, invisible, quickly recoverable, redundant, and numerous, the result can only get worse when the PLAAF is able to strike freely across the island. Seiz­ing sea dominance would primarily involve the PLAN, joined by the PLAAF, ground forces, and Second Artillery, working together to control the area of the anticipated naval campaign, securing the landing force’s abilities to undertake embarkation, seaborne transportation (coupled with defensive mine sweeping), and the assault landing.49 The naval campaign poses chal­lenges for both sides. Given the profusion and range of the antiship weap­ons available to both sides, it is difficult for both the PLAN and Taiwan naval forces to hide and survive in the Taiwan Strait because of its limited and con­strained operational space.

Preparatory attacks against Taiwan’s coastal defenses prior to an amphib­ious landing invasion would be mainly conducted by the PLAAF, joined by ground forces, PLAN, and Second Artillery forces. Depending upon the results of the previous missile and air attacks, PRC forces would seek to destroy enemy coastal defense facilities, artillery positions, missiles, radar sites, com­mand structures, communication nodes, and other key targets. Through these, the PRC would seek to reduce enemy defense capability, stop enemy move­ments, isolate the landing area, and create favorable conditions for landing PLA ground forces.50

Embarkation and movement would proceed upon the basis of success­ful preliminary operations. The mission of embarkation is organizing land­ing forces, with their attendant logistical requirements, and loading them for transportation. Movement means all formation of landing forces en route to the respective staging area from the rendezvous area. According to a James­town Foundation study by Dennis Blasko, the PLAN lacks strategic sealift capacity, and thus cannot meet the requirements of a full-scale amphibious landing invasion against Taiwan, at least in the short term.51 If this is the case, the PLA should employ more than one wave of amphibious fleets in a secured environment when it intends to invade Taiwan directly. The embarkation point must be a short distance from landing beaches to reduce time spent at sea. This is quite risky, for PLAN forces would be under near-constant Taiwan counter­sea attacks. Since, as Blasko notes, “Naval units from the South Sea Fleet would have to travel at least 500 nautical miles and those from the North Sea Fleet would have to travel at least 700 nautical miles to reach Taiwan,” the employ­ment of fires against PLAN forces would be near-constant, and grow ever more deadly as forces came within reach of increasingly numerous shorter – range weapons, such as aircraft, sea – or-land-based antiship missiles, coastal gun fire, and battlefield rocket artillery such as the multiple-launch rocket sys­tem (MLRS).52

Assaulting and establishing the beach-head is primarily conducted by landing groups and assisted by other services to fight and assure the joint oper­ation’s success. In the view of PLA analysts, it is the most critical of any of the invasion’s operational phases, the time of greatest stress, intensity, difficulty, and decisiveness. It is incumbent upon the invasion commander to assure the landing operations are successful by all means. The landing beach must be as swiftly established as possible after the first echelon of landing forces have assaulted and secured the beach front, and then developed rapidly in depth so that follow-on landing forces can exploit it. All these operations must be assisted by on-call, persistent, close air support, which would be provided pri­marily by the PLAAF.53

The PLA and supporting defense industry are in the midst of a potentially dramatic transformation in aerospace concepts and capabilities. While still in a state of flux, basic aerospace concepts appear to be guiding an ambitious force modernization program. Heavily influenced by American and other foreign strategists, basic Chinese aerospace theory is founded upon the notion that un­impeded access to skies over a region not only enables operational success on the surface, but also has intrinsic value as an instrument of national power.

Aerospace power is among the most flexible and effective of coercive tools available to political decisionmakers. At the strategic level, airpower, and more broadly aerospace power, have the potential to influence the cost-benefit calculus of an opposing political leadership. Aerospace power seeks to achieve effects at the strategic, theater, or tactical level. Unlike surface warfare, airpow – er is usually concentrated to directly achieve objectives with theater-wide sig­nificance, bypassing tactical objectives. Airpower, if used properly, can serve political as well as military objectives. A single airstrike may have strategic sig­nificance, in that it can produce a political outcome. In measuring the effec­tiveness of a coercive air campaign, one relies more on judgments of strategic, rather than tactical, effectiveness, e. g., how well bombs, missiles, and electron­ic attack affect targets. Strategic effectiveness describes how the destruction of target sets attains political goals.

At the operational level, air superiority determines success in a campaign for sea control, an amphibious invasion, or physical occupation of territory. As time goes on, the same may be said for space control. In a conflict, the side that enjoys unimpeded access to the skies over a region gains an overwhelming ad­vantage on the surface.8 Colonel John A. Warden III, a key architect of modern U. S. airpower thought and doctrine, once observed, “no country has won a war in the face of enemy air superiority, no major offensive has succeeded against an opponent who controlled the air, and no defense has sustained itself against an enemy who had air superiority.” As Warden noted, “to be superior in the air, to have air superiority, means having sufficient control of the air to make air attacks on the enemy without serious opposition and, on the other hand, to be free from the danger of serious enemy air incursions.”9

The PLA, led by the Second Artillery and increasingly the PLAAF, un­derstands the potential role aerospace power plays in strategy and modern warfare. For a PLAAF seeking to integrate more offensive roles and missions, the goal in a conflict is to gain local or limited air superiority, which permits freedom of flight over a limited area for a finite period of time. Limited air su­periority is differentiated from theater air superiority, or supremacy, in which air assets can operate anywhere within the entire combat theater with impu – nity.10 Attainment of air superiority requires neutralizing or suppressing as­sets that can interfere with air operations, including fighters, ground-based air defenses, sensors such as radar systems, jammers, and various supporting in­frastructure. Like all other systems, air defense has points of failure that could have system-wide effects if neutralized. For countering fighters and other long-range precision strike assets, history has shown that targeting runways, logistical support, aircrews, and aircraft on the ground is more cost-effective than fighting air battles, if operational surprise can be achieved.11

The PLA strategic studies community notes that the predominant trend transforming traditional notions of airpower (ЙФЛж) is the seamless integra­tion of the air and space domains, expansion of the strategic battlespace, as well as nonmilitary uses of airpower such as disaster relief.12 A key focus is develop­ment of long-range precision strike capabilities in order to gain strategic lever­age in future crises, complicate the ability of the United States to intervene (e. g., “counterintervention” (ST^) operations), and ensure air superiority in terri­torial disputes around its periphery. Developmental efforts include extended range aerodynamic platforms and follow-on variants of conventional ballistic missiles, including those able to engage moving targets at sea. Over time, as its persistent sensor, data fusion, and command and control architecture increas­es in sophistication and range, the PLAs ability to hold at risk an expanding number of targets throughout the western Pacific Ocean, South China Sea, and elsewhere around its periphery is expected to grow.13

Over the years, the PLA has made significant advances in developing a force capable of applying aerospace power in a joint environment.14 Expansion of Second Artillery conventional missile infrastructure, PLAAF long-term force modernization, and a conceptual body of literature suggest that the PLA is in the midst of a fundamental shift in joint aerospace power doctrine. PLA analysts have traditionally viewed application of aerospace power as a form of “firepow­er warfare,” which involves the coordinated use of PLAAF strike aviation assets, Second Artillery conventional theater missiles, and information warfare.

The PRC’s ballistic missile forces could operate independently in support of a deterrent or coercive campaign or in support of air, maritime, or informa­tion operations. The Second Artillery’s most important mission likely would be suppression of enemy air defenses in order to facilitate air superiority and follow-on air strikes. Centrally commanded and controlled at the theater lev­el, the Second Artillery’s basic principles stress surprise and preemption, con­centration of resources, and rapid reaction. The Second Artillery’s force mod­ernization program requires a significant increase in accuracy and increased numbers of ballistic missiles. At the same time, it is developing sophisticated warheads that could increase the destructiveness of the ballistic missile force.

Four evolving theoretical concepts of aerospace power shape the opera­tional requirements needed to support national security needs:

■ integrated attack-defense operations

■ integrated information-firepower

■ strategic strike

■ integrated air and space (aerospace) operations.

While degree of emphasis varies between services, all reflect a belief in the expanding nature of the battlespace that drives long-range operational re­quirements, and possibly a future realignment of roles and missions.15

The growing capability of the PLAAF raises the question of its influence within the PLA and what role it currently plays in national policymaking. An analysis of the PLAAF’s missions versus those of other services is illuminating. In his “Essences for an Offensive and Defensive Chinese Air Force” essay, Lieu­tenant General Liu Yazhou argues that the air force must be capable of play­ing a major role in a variety of military operations against Taiwan—including air and missile attacks, a naval blockade, or even an outright invasion of the island.61 Over the last decade, the PLAAF has striven to develop the capability for carrying out all-weather, day-night, high-intensity, simultaneous offensive and defensive operations. The 2006 Science of Campaigns by the PLAs National Defense University identifies the following major PLAAF missions:62

■ military deterrence

■ offensive air operations (including air-blockade, airborne forces inser­tion, informatized operations, and special operations)

■ air defense

■ assisting ground and navy forces in offensive-defensive operations

■ assisting the Second Artillery force in missile attacks

■ resisting a more powerful enemy’s attack

■ participating in United Nations operations.

In discussing air offensive campaign categories, Science of Campaigns pinpointed three objectives that the PLAAF is expected to achieve:63

■ seizing air control by annihilating or crippling the enemy’s offensive and defensive airpower forces

■ creating favorable conditions for the army and navy to operate by destroying a large number of ground troops and the communication systems

■ attacking the enemy’s political, military, and economic targets to weaken his war potential or to achieve specific strategic objectives.

Two major concerns are intrinsic within PLA campaign theory: one is the presumption that the air force’s offensive capability remains limited, both in terms of the quantity and quality of PLAAF forces; and the other is that the enemy—specifically Taiwan—has built up such a sophisticated air defense sys­tem (consisting of radars, EW aircraft and satellites integrated with fighters, antiaircraft missiles, and artillery) that it will be difficult for PLAAF or PLAN strike aircraft to break through it.64

An important discontinuity of thought is inherent within how the PLAAF and the PLA perceive the PLAAF’s combat role and capabilities. While the PLAAF holds that the air force should be capable of being used through­out a conflict from the beginning to the end, PLA campaign theory argues otherwise, suggesting that the PLAAF should be employed in offensive oper­ations at the critical time (M^B^).65 This may reflect an intriguing fact: the officers responsible for writing PLA campaign theory come mainly from the army. Thus it is likely that this difference represents the army’s influence within PLA doctrinal circles and, consequently, its own interpretation about the mis­sion and current capability of the PLAAF. Furthermore, it explains why the PLA has attached great importance to land-based ballistic and cruise missile programs versus winged atmospheric (hence PLAAF) attack. Competition for resources between the PLAAF and Second Artillery is inevitable as the PLA pursues developing a long-range strike capability, particularly as strategic pro­jection remains a major deficit of PLAAF capability. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, according to PLA campaign doctrine, the Second Artillery is defined as a primary player of the joint strike force to conduct preemptive attacks (&ФФ1 Й) against enemy targets from long range.66

In contemplating regional conflict, China’s greatest concern is confront­ing an American intervention. Over the years after the first Gulf War, Chi­nese defense experts raised serious doubts whether the country could with­stand air and missile attacks similar to those that had shattered Iraq’s military structure and capabilities. The subsequent emphasis of the “three attacks and the three defenses” required the development of air defense systems that are capable of attacking stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, and armed helicopters (the “three attacks”), and protecting against precision strikes, electronic jamming, and elec­tronic reconnaissance and surveillance (the “three defenses”).67 The 2008 defense white paper characterizes the PLAAF as a mixed force of aviation, ground-based air defense, airborne, signal, radar, electronic countermeasures (ECM), techni­cal reconnaissance, and chemical defense.68 This mixed-force structure will con­tinue to complicate China’s air and space decisions, particularly with regard to training, allocating roles and missions among the services and branches, and influencing resource allocations for Chinese air force modernization.

Division of responsibility across the services in air defense also challenges the PLAAF’s effort to build an integrated air defense system. The PLAAF is pri­marily responsible for the air defense mission. It not only operates most of Chi­na’s fighters and also most of its ground-based air defense systems, such as sur­face-to-air missiles (SAMs) and antiaircraft artillery (AAA). The PLA ground force and navy units also operate antiaircraft systems (short-range antiaircraft missiles and antiaircraft artillery, and navy fighters) to protect themselves. The question is to what extent the possession of air defense systems by other ser­vices represents an old service cultural preference for embracing every possible capability, particularly since many of these ground-based air defense weapon­ries have proven ineffective in recent warfare.69

The PLAAF’s Science of Modern Air Defense describes air defense as an integrated air-space operation in all dimensions (air, sea, space, cyber, and ground), and requires joint operations of all services.70 Yet against this con­fident assertion, evidence out of China is confusing. The PLAAF air defense forces operate the most sophisticated long – and middle-range SAM systems, the Russian made S-300 and China’s indigenously developed HQ-9/12 series. However, the bulk of Chinese SAM batteries remain equipped with the obso­lete HQ-2 systems as well as outdated Stalinist/Mao-era antiaircraft artil – lery.71 Perhaps what is even more significant is that no single national air com­mand system has ever been established equivalent to the former Soviet Union’s PVO-Strany, or the United States’ North American Aerospace Defense Com­mand (NORAD). Lieutenant General Liu has suggested creating a Chinese “NORAD” to command China’s air defense based around the Beijing Military Region Air Force. The recent Vanguard-2010 exercise suggests that the army air defense forces are attempting to assert their independent role in China’s national air defense system, however it develops.72

Conclusion

With the existence of a ground force-dominated culture and the emer­gence of other cultures for the other services, the PLAAF’s relationship with other services and organizations has been complicated, but not significantly changed since its earliest days. The PLAAF is a separate service (junzhong) along with the PLAN and Second Artillery under the CMC. The General Staff Department is responsible for operations, military affairs, training, and mobilization for the entire PLA. Allocation of missions is under the purview of the General Staff. As a result of bureaucratic politics, an analysis of mis­sions divided between the air force and other services does not suggest that the PLAAF’s role and influence are likely to change in the future, despite changes in China’s security interests, technological developments, and other areas.

The growth of China’s airpower in recent years has naturally raised great Western interest in comprehending the PLAAF’s influence within the PLA, its relationship with other services, and the role it currently plays in national policy­making. Change is clearly underway within the ranks of the PLAAF, which has embraced a new concept of operations that emphasizes development of an air force capable of both offensive and defensive operations, fielding an increasing number of fourth-generation multirole fighters, early warning and electronic warfare aircraft, and long-range surface-to-air missiles. The force structure is being radically reshaped to become a smaller, yet more technologically capa­ble, service. For military organizations to be able to take dramatic changes, they must also have appropriate personnel policies, organizational structure, service culture, and leader development programs. What has not changed is the PLAs political culture, service tradition, older ways of doing things, and outdated organizational system. All these form relentless constraints that will undoubt­edly continue to hinder the PLAAF’s modernization efforts.

In sum, then, the PLA is a titanic bureaucratic amalgamation with a leaden hand of tradition that can often block innovation. Changes in doctrine, training practices, force structure, and equipment are underway, yet many traditions and cultural characteristics of the 83-year-old PLA are rigorously maintained. On top of that, there is the Party-controlled political culture and the ground force-cen­tric predominant organizational tradition of the PLA. Both serve as constraining mechanisms that not only restrict the PLAs drive to autonomy, but also ensure its loyalty to the Party and obedience to Party policy. No military reformation can be expected to undermine the Party’s control over the military (with the CMC on the top, assisted by four headquarters departments, though not organized in Western fashion as true joint command and control apparatuses).

If new mission requirements and an emphasis on joint operations are forcing the PLAAF to rethink itself and its role, to reduce its force size, to acquire new aircraft and weapons systems, and to strengthen its command and control by informatization, none of these changes has seriously posed challenges to the existing organizational system of the PLA. The political culture and the military system of the PLA continue to ensure the Chinese air force remains as it has been—consisting of aviation, surface-to-air missiles, antiaircraft artil­lery, radar, and airborne troops, while space assets and strategic missiles remain separate from it. Despite the PLAAF’s vision of being capable of both offensive and defensive operations, the PLAs current campaign theory defines the Second Artillery force as a preemptive strike force and projects the PLAAF to carry out offensive operations at critical, necessary moments. Thus, although the PLAAF is in the midst of a dramatic transformation with new weapons systems and growing capabilities, its role and influence remain limited within the contempo­rary, army-dominated, Chinese military system. As in other nations previously, differing and conflicting service cultures contribute frictions between services, though, in China, that has not brought any fundamental change of relationship among the land-air-sea forces. The continued existence of political constraints on when and how airpower should be used further limits and frustrates any role the air force can play in national policymaking.

Historically, the Chinese leadership has repeatedly demonstrated hesita­tion in employing its national airpower for offensive purposes. This was partly attributed to the Chinese leadership’s misunderstanding of the PLAAF’s actual experience in the Korean War and in homeland air defense operations during the Cold War, and to their ignorance (for various reasons) of the actual role that airpower can play in modern conflict. The other factor was because the PLAAF had been incapable, in any case, of conducting offensive operations, again for a variety of reasons such as available force structure, capabilities, and training.

The potential of a U. S. intervention is always seen as a major variable of a regional security equation, particularly in a crisis over Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait. While the PLAAF’s modernization efforts may close the gap between its aircraft and avionic capabilities and those of the United States, its overall capa­bility will continue to be inferior to that of the U. S. Air Force. The current and future Chinese leadership will continue to face and confront the same dilem­mas as have its predecessors over the extent that political considerations and the PLAAF’s restricted capabilities work to constrain Beijing’s national security calculation and decisionmaking.

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the PLA’s warfighting potential has grown in parallel with China’s economic surge. Assuming its economy contin­ues along a steady trajectory, China will be able to commit further resources to the more challenging aspects of the three-step strategy, particularly infor­matization. Should these goals be realized, the United States and other powers will face a genuine challenge in preparing themselves to encounter increasingly capable Chinese aerospace power over the coming decades. This perhaps is the key rationale fueling continued interest in studying the steady evolution of the PLAAF as it progresses through the 21st century.

A major transformation in thinking among PLA air – and spacepower analysts since the early 1990s has been their increasing emphasis on offen­sive missions and operations, and their growing faith in the broad strategic, campaign, and political utility of the offensive mission. Longtime PLAAF ana­lyst Min Zengfu traces this change in thinking, noting that during the 1970s and 1980s, the two major tasks set forth by the Central Military Commis­sion that defined the PLAAF’s mission were air defense of the national terri­tory and providing support for military combat operations of the infantry and navy. In the early 1990s, however, as part of China’s reorientation of its “pri­mary strategic direction” away from defense against the former Soviet Union and toward preventing Taiwan independence and securing China’s interests along its southeast coast, the PLAAF’s missions were redefined and expanded to include more offensive operations.23 Along with deterrence and air defense, the PLAAF’s capability to carry out offensive operations is now one of the three missions that attract the greatest emphasis and focus among analysts.

This increased emphasis on the offensive mission is reflected in the 2007 edition of the National Defense University’s The Science of Campaigns. The text notes that the PLAAF’s service mission of “being simultaneously prepared for offense and defense” (gongfang jianbei, ЖШШ%) is a combined offensive and defensive mission, but the authors then proceed to urge that the air force place greater focus on the active, offensive aspects of this mission.

The Air Force should implement the operational thinking of emphasiz­ing offense [zhuzhong jingong, while being simultaneously pre­

pared for offense and defense. The Air Force should give full play to its powerful aerial mobility, rapid speed, and long-distance strike capabilities, as well as its advantages in conducting multiple types of aerial missions.24

PLAAF analysts Cai Fengzhen and Tian Anping echo these thoughts, calling upon the air force to expand the role and power of offense and labeling this an “urgent task.”

China needs to readjust its attack-and-defense structure. The urgent task facing China is to increase the ratio and power of its offensive combat strength and to increase the quality of its defense, while at the same time reducing the scope of its defense. To be able to simultaneously attack and defend has become a short-term objective for China to achieve.25

David Shlapak

Since the early 1990s, and rapidly accelerating after the latter half of that decade, China has undertaken an ambitious program of military mod­ernization, one that continues vigorously today.1 A primary focal point of this effort has been to update and upgrade the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), which for the first 40-plus years of its existence had been a backward force, equipped with numerous but antiquated aircraft flown by poorly trained pilots. While it has yet to completely outgrow this modest past, the PLAAF has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last 20 years, a process that seems certain to continue through the foreseeable future.

This paper addresses one aspect of the PLAAF’s ongoing evolution: its air­craft and weapons. This assessment leads to a conclusion that the point of the PLAAF’s spear—its fleet of modern combat aircraft along with their munitions— has mostly caught up to the standards of other advanced air forces. In terms of its physical hardware, the PLAAF will soon have the ability to credibly challenge the United States over the nearby waters of the Taiwan Strait, if it is not capa­ble already. However, the PLAAF’s ability to project airpower against a first-rate adversary in an arena farther from China’s shores—over the South China Sea or beyond—remains more doubtful, although this could change in the next decade.

Equipment is of course only one piece of the airpower puzzle; without adequate doctrine, leadership, training, and ground support, the most modern aircraft and equipment are at best a static display and at worst a target array. So, this paper’s judgment of China’s air force must be partial; larger and more integrated assessments are needed to understand the PLAAF more thoroughly. What can be said is, should the PLAAF falter in a Taiwan contingency, its lead­ers will be hard put to lay the blame on their tools.

Like most defense establishments, the PLA characterizes its moderniza­tion efforts as defensive in nature. To this end, aerospace power is viewed as a vital element of territorial air defense with offensive air operations as a means to suppress adversary strike capabilities at their source. As the PRC’s 2008 De­fense White Paper explains:

China pursues a national defense policy which is purely defensive in na­ture. China places the protection of national sovereignty, security, ter­ritorial integrity, safeguarding of the interests of national development, and the interests of the Chinese people above all else.16

The concept of integrated defense and offense is primarily in the context of the joint air defense. Indeed, most aerospace industry studies address an antiship ballistic missile (ASBM) capability in the context of defending against sea-based assets, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles and other strike systems. Integrated at­tack and defense (^KS#)is intimately related to the concept of a joint counter­air strike campaign (К-^йЙЖШё:). In doctrinal writings, counterair strike op­erations theory is divided into passive defense (ШЯ), territorial air defense (K ф), and offensive counterair operations (йф). The PLAAF and Second Artillery envision holding at risk facilities and assets around China’s periphery, including air bases, aircraft carriers and other surface assets, and missile-related facilities.17

A general concept appears to be to develop the ability to conduct offen­sive counterair strikes out to a range covered by persistent surveillance assets as far as Guam, at a distance of 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) from the east coast of China. Second Artillery and PLAAF force modernization appears to be fo­cused on systems able to suppress air operations on Guam, throughout the South China Sea, and other locations by the middle of this decade. Systems are under development which may place U. S. military facilities on Guam at risk by 2015.18 To test theories, in the summer of 2009, the PLAAF and Second Artil­lery conducted one of the first large-scale joint live-fire exercises involving ele­ments from four missile brigades and two PLAAF air divisions.19

In the traditional PLA operational lexicon, air and/or conventional mis­sile operations are viewed within the context of an integrated joint firepower campaign that consists of strike aviation, theater missiles, and/or long-range ar­tillery. PLA analysts view an air campaign as an integral component of “joint fire­power warfare” operations (К-^^Лі№) involving the coordinated use of PLA Air Force strike aviation assets and Second Artillery conventional theater missiles.

Kenneth W. Allen

Any examination of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) must examine its organizational structure «ФФШФО, answer­ing three fundamental questions: What is the PLAAF’s current organizational structure and what are the historical, theoretical, bureaucratic, and other rea­sons for it?1 What are the implications of the current organizational structure for the PLAAF’s future development? Finally, how might the PLAAF’s organi­zational structure change in order to operate in a joint conflict?

Introduction

During the 1990s, the PLAAF began purchasing high-tech weapons from abroad, as well as developing and purchasing them domestically, includ­ing combat aircraft (such as the Russian Sukhoi Su-27), surface-to-air missiles (SAMs, such as the SA-10), and radar and electronic countermeasures (ECM) systems that now form the cornerstone of its table of organization and equip­ment (TOE). In order to support these systems, the PLAAF has also begun implementing significant organizational changes that have mirrored similar changes occurring in the rest of the PLA.

Starting in the early 2000s, PLAAF officers began to assume key joint bil­lets, including membership on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Central Military Commission (CMC), commandant of the Academy of Military Science, commandant and political commissar of the National Defense University, and deputy director billets in the General Staff Department (GSD), General Political Department (GPD), and General Logistics Department (GLD). Although these appointments are impressive, not all of them are permanent PLAAF billets. In addition, the army still dominates the majority of the leadership and working billets in all of these organizations, along with the General Armament Depart­ment (GAD), which has yet to have a PLAAF (or PLA Navy) deputy, and all seven of the Military Region (MR) Headquarters. There are no indications this pattern of army domination will change in the next decade.

Concerning the PLAAF’s branches, one of the most significant orga­nizational changes occurred within the last decade, when the PLAAF redes­ignated its radar branch as a specialty force. Even though the PLAAF’s ECM troops are also considered a specialty force, the PLAAF has consolidated their administrative structure into a PLAAF Electronic Countermeasures and Radar Department under the Headquarters Department and merged the research and development for the two forces into a single research institute under the Air Force Equipment Research Academy. Yet another significant change occurred in 1993, when the 15th Airborne Corps upgraded its three brigades to divisions, was designated the lead element for the PLA’s rapid reaction force, and changed from being subordinate to the Guangzhou Military Region Air Force (MRAF) to being directly subordinate to PLAAF Headquarters.2 Although the airborne corps still lacks sufficient airlift capabilities, since the early 1990s it has shifted from having primarily an internal security mission to a combined internal and external security mission.

Starting in the late 1990s, the PLAAF began to restructure its academic institution and equipment support structures. To help provide better education to its cadets and meet operational support requirements, the PLAAF consoli­dated several colleges into two universities—Air Force Engineering University (1999) and Air Force Aviation University (2004)—and restructured some of its other colleges—Xuzhou (Logistics) Air Force College, Guilin (Antiaircraft Artillery and Airborne) Air Force College, and flight colleges. At the same time, however, the PLAAF has increased the number of new officers who have grad­uated from the Defense Student (SK£) program at 18 civilian academic insti­tutions. This program is also called the Reserve Officer (^S^W) program. The goal for 2010 was to have 60 percent of all new officers come from civilian academic institutions, of which two-thirds would come from the Defense Stu­dent Program and one-third from directly recruited civilian college graduates with science and engineering degrees; however, a November 2009 Jiefangjun Bao article stated that the PLAs officer corps receives about 100,000 graduates per year, of which 70 percent come from military academic institutions and 30 percent from the Defense Student program.3 The number of pilot cadets who have been recruited from civilian college graduates and students rather than from high school graduates and enlisted personnel is also rising. These changes will continue to challenge the size and structure of the PLAAF’s academic insti­tutions and may necessitate further consolidation over the next decade.

Over the past decade, the PLAAF’s logistics support structure has mir­rored changes that have occurred in the GLD, which is roughly equivalent to the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J-4 (Logistics) Directorate. One of the biggest changes occurred in 1998 when the PLAAF’s Logistics Department, which had been responsible for providing maintenance support for all nonaviation equip­ment and weapons systems (e. g., SAMs, AAA, radars), turned over support for all of this equipment, except vehicles, to the PLAAF’s restructured Equipment Department. In addition, during the 2000s, the GLD and PLAAF consolidated

their Quartermaster Department, Materials Department, and Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (POL) Department into a single Quartermaster, Materials, and POL Department. Even though these organizations have been merged at the top, they remain separated as individual branches at the regiment level.

Concerning the equipment support structure, two major changes have occurred since the late 1990s. The first occurred in 1998, when the PLA estab­lished the GAD and the PLAAF adjusted its existing equipment support struc­ture, so that the restructured Equipment Department took responsibility for developing and supporting all combat equipment and weapons systems, except vehicles, from birth to death. In 2004, the PLAAF also created a new Air Force Equipment Research Academy that became responsible for managing the research and development for all PLAAF combat equipment and weapons sys­tems. There are no indications the equipment support structure, which is fully integrated with the logistics support structure at the regiment and below levels, will change appreciably over the next decade.