The PLAAF’s Evolving Influence within the PLA and upon National Policy

Xiaoming Zhang

The rise of China as a global economic and political power in recent years raises concerns for many policymakers, strategists, and scholars about Chinese military modernization—concerns that might provide a new perspec­tive on global security for years to come.1 At the center of this concern is the fact that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force (PLAAF) has gained offensive capability by equipping itself with an increasing number of third – and fourth-generation fighters, airborne early warning aircraft, aerial refueling tankers, intelligence collection and jamming aircraft, and long-range antiair­craft missile systems. But what matters most is not so much the growth of Chi­nese airpower capability per se; rather, it is how China might use its new mili­tary strength, especially its air and naval power. One area of particular interest to defense analysts is the evolving influence of the PLAAF within the PLA and in China’s own national policymaking.

Airpower and its influence have primarily dominated in Western politi­cal thought. Given China’s growing economic and military power as well as changes in its bureaucratic politics, security interests, and technology, it is logi­cal to examine the following concerns as they relate to the PLAAF:

■ concepts for airpower as an instrument of statecraft

■ influence within the PLA and in national policymaking

■ vision of future roles and missions

■ organization, leadership, personnel, and doctrine

■ capabilities

■ political and military implications of all of the above for Taiwan and the United States.

In 2007, a U. S. Army War College and National Bureau of Asian Research project, Right Sizing the People’s Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China’s Military, produced two separate studies of the latest development of the PLAAF and its growing capability.2 Using different methodologies, these two studies—one a scenario-based approach to articulate impending developments of the Chinese air force, and the other focused on institutional and doctrinal developments since the 1990s—addressed concerns such as the PLAAF’s current status and influence within the PLA and what role the PLAAF currently plays in national policymak­ing. The studies contend that perceptions of the international threat environment, technological limitations, lack of advanced aircraft, and budget concerns would act as constraints on the PLAAF’s modernization efforts, and any significant prog­ress in force modernization would take at least 10-15 years to reach.3

This chapter is inclined to argue that while the PLAAF is transforming, the PLA’s political culture and organizational system pose a serious challenge to China’s current effort to embrace an air force that is capable of both offensive and defensive operations, and especially to the PLAAF’s own ambition to “bear the brunt of the operations, and play a sustained, independent role” in modern warfare. These challenges include the PLAs and PLAAF’s tradition, percep­tion of itself and each other, older way of doing things, outdated organizational structure, and limited funding under the current system. The PLAAF’s current development is about more than changing doctrine and buying advanced sys­tems. An appropriate organizational change is necessary. It will take far longer to nourish an institutional culture that enables the PLAAF to embrace both offensive and defensive capability as an independent strategic force.

Analyzing the current and future state of PLAAF modernization neces­sitates examining the historical development of the Chinese air force and its experiences (during the Korean War, the 1950s Taiwan Strait crises, and the air defense engagements against Nationalist and American intrusions); it also requires an examination of the historical evolution of the political culture of the PLAAF over the years, including utilization of the senior leadership’s mili­tary thought as guidance to keep the development of the air force politically correct and thus reliable. It is against this historical background that the author has made his assessment of the current development of the PLAAF. The con­clusion following from this is that the army-dominated organizational system and the emergence of different services’ cultures continue to limit the PLAAF’s influence within the PLA, its relationship with other services, and the role it currently plays in national policymaking. This situation exists despite China’s experiencing profound changes in bureaucratic politics, in its security inter­ests, and in its technology and military capabilities.