China’s Quest for Joint Aerospace Power: Concepts and Future Aspirations

Mark A. Stokes

The desire to fly higher, faster, and farther is shared by airmen around the world, and unimpeded access to the skies over a region convincingly dem­onstrates national power. Spurred by a global diffusion of technology and a de­sire to develop a military commensurate with its growing economic might, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is developing capabilities that could alter the strategic landscape in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Shaping the future strategic environment in the Asia-Pacific region, aerospace power traverses vast distances and places a premium on speed and agility that defy the laws of gravity.

Aerospace power—the strategic and operational application of military force via platforms operating in or passing through air and space—is emerging as a key instrument of Chinese statecraft. Control of the skies is a critical en­abler for dominance on the Earth’s surface. Gaining and maintaining air supe­riority and space control could provide a political and military leadership with the operational freedom needed to coerce an opponent to make concessions in political disputes. Freedom of action in the skies can offer a decisive edge on the surface. Chinese observers view air and space as a single operational me­dium of the future, with the English term aerospace best describing the merg­ing of the twin domains.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is rapidly advancing its capacity to apply aerospace power in order to defend against perceived threats to national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Constrained by a relatively underdeveloped aviation establishment, the PLA is investing in aerospace capabilities that may offset shortcomings in the face of a more technologically advanced adversary.

Refining its concepts of airpower and integrated aerospace operations along with rapidly advancing technology, the PLA is embarked upon a quest to extend its operational military power vertically into space and horizontally be­yond its immediate periphery. The PLAs concept of airpower is broader than its air force. Conventional manned fixed-wing air assets are only one possible means of delivering firepower at extended ranges. To date, PLA convention­al air platforms have been insufficient by themselves to suppress air defenses, conduct strategic strike missions, or gain air superiority around the Chinese periphery.

Today, the PLAs growing arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal ballis­tic and land attack cruise missiles serves as its primary instrument of aerospace power projection and strategic attack. Theater missiles, defined as conventional ballistic and land attack cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 ki­lometers (310-3,410 miles), also enable the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) to com­pensate for its shortcomings in suppression of enemy air defenses needed to at­tain limited air superiority, conduct strategic strike, and perform other roles and missions. Over the longer term, the PLAAF aspires to gain the ability to conduct independent strategic attack missions as well as integrated air and space—that is, aerospace—operations. Whether independent or joint, a persistent surveil­lance network is a critical enabler for PLAAF and Second Artillery delivery of firepower against selected strategic and operational targets with precision and at increasingly extended ranges. Looking toward 2025, Chinese technical writings outline a vision for a conventional global precision strike capability.

Key drivers shaping PLA concepts of aerospace power as an instrument of national power include gaining an ability to enforce territorial claims and resolve sovereignty disputes on terms favorable to Beijing. Threat perceptions are also in­fluencing PLA operational concepts and force modernization. A more efficient and effective system for leveraging military-related technologies is also shaping new operational and organizational concepts that best accommodate new capa­bilities, such as long-range precision strike and counterspace systems. Over the longer term, successful development and deployment of intermediate – and inter­continental-range conventional ballistic missiles and other precision strike assets would offer the PRC political leadership a flexible deterrent that could achieve strategic and operational effects against an enemy in a crisis.

The emergence of China as a major economic, technological, military, and political player is changing the dynamics within the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large. Various drivers energize China’s evolving aerospace power theories, and can be examined through the prism of four central con­cepts associated with joint aerospace operations: integrated offense-defense; integrated information-firepower; strategic strike; and integrated air and space (aerospace). Various aspects of technological development and force modern­ization are narrowing the gap between aspiration and future capabilities.

Strategic Drivers

Four key drivers shape PRC concepts of aerospace power:

■ territorial integrity

■ asserting sovereignty

■ threat perception

■ technology diffusion.

In great measure, the PLA’s rapid advance in its capacity to apply aero­space power is driven by the requirement to defend against perceived threats to national sovereignty and territorial integrity. In enforcing sovereignty claims over the last 20 years, conventional ballistic missiles have been one of the most effective tools of PRC political and military coercion. As a symbolic metric of intent, the PRC’s expanding arsenal of conventional ballistic missiles across the Taiwan Strait is intended to deter political support in Taiwan for de jure independence and coerce the island’s population to support unification with China on Beijing’s terms. Whoever dominates the skies over a given geograph­ic space, such as Taiwan, disputed territories in northern India or Japan, and the South China Sea, has a decisive advantage on the surface. Over the last 15 years, conventional ballistic and land attack cruise missiles have been perhaps the most visible and central element of PRC’s coercive strategy against Taiwan. Over the next 10-15 years, more advanced conventional air assets, integrated with persistent surveillance, a single integrated air and space picture, and sur – vivable communications architecture, could enable greater confidence in en­forcing a broader range of territorial claims around China’s periphery.

Traditional concepts of air defense have evolved into a broader concept for a “national aerospace security system” as a means to defend against perceived threats. At least one key driver of aerospace power development is a require­ment to be familiar with and have countermeasures against advanced U. S. long – range precision strike capabilities expected to be in place by 2025.1 To quote one long-time China watcher, “the Chinese armed forces are obsessed with defend­ing China from long-range precision air strikes.”2 Applicable American technol­ogy efforts that fuel Chinese concern over long-range precision strike include the joint program of the Air Force, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and Lockheed-Martin called the Force Application and Launch from the Continental U. S. (FALCON) Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 (HTV-2) program. Under this concept, the Minotaur solid-fueled launch vehicle boosts an unmanned, maneuverable, hypersonic flight vehicle into near-space, which glides back through the atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 20. The launch ve­hicle also could be capable of launching microsatellites into space on short notice. Another program of interest is the U. S. Air Force (USAF)-Boeing X-37B Orbit­al Test Vehicle first boosted into space in April 2010.3 Yet another is the USAF – Boeing-Pratt & Whitney-Rocketdyne X-51A WaveRider supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) demonstrator, which is dropped from a B-52 and boosted to high supersonic speeds by a rocket before its scramjet engine is initiated. The

X-51A completed its first flight in May 2010, the first successful demonstration of a hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet engine in aviation history.

A more immediate goal appears to be developing the means to deny or complicate the ability of the United States to intervene in a regional contingency around its periphery. Chinese analysts may view an expansion of the battlespace and disruption of U. S. ability to project conventional power in response to Chi­nese use of force to resolve territorial or sovereignty claims as a legitimate force modernization requirement. Authoritative Chinese writings indicate research into, and development of, increasingly accurate and longer range conventional strategic strike systems that could be launched from Chinese territory against land – and sea-based targets throughout the Asia-Pacific region in a crisis situa­tion. Observers appear concerned over vulnerability to first strike against Chi­na’s nuclear deterrent. As a corollary, Chinese force planners may be emulating or mirroring United States aerospace power concepts and programs, based on a perceived requirement to narrow the technological gap and attain a global status commensurate with the country’s rising economic power.4

Technological diffusion constitutes an important driver for Chinese aerospace power. The more efficient and effective means for leveraging mil­itary-related technologies shape new operational and organizational concepts that best accommodate new capabilities, such as long-range precision strike and counterspace systems. If the technological capacity exists, the incentives to develop systems to expand the country’s aerospace power may prove irresist – ible.5 As a result, unforeseen breakthroughs in disruptive technologies and so – called trump card capabilities indeed could change strategic calculations in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.6

Means of diffusing aerospace technology include formal and informal organizations intended to facilitate collaboration between the PLA, industry, and academia; enabling technological breakthroughs via innovative organiza­tional changes within the PLA’s acquisition and equipment system and aero­space industry; and decisive steps taken to develop new internationally com­petitive industries involving large, complex systems such as commercial avia­tion.7 Indeed, China’s defense research and development (R&D) establishment is breaking down barriers that previously hampered ability to field the complex “system of systems” characteristic of contemporary advanced aerospace power.