The PLAAF’s Early Experiences

The present understanding of the PLAAF’s development cannot be dis­associated from an overview of its early experiences. The doctrinal guidance for PLAAF development was Chinese defensive thinking. From the outset, the PLAAF leadership preferred to build an air force that possessed more fighters than bombers. Its theory was that the role of fighters dovetailed well with the defensive cast of Chinese military thought. Bombers attacked enemy countries and terri­tories—an aggressive act—but fighters were defensive in nature and, if success­ful in fending off attacks, would ensure air superiority.4 The PLAAF’s immediate mission, therefore, was to attain air superiority over the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan, provide support to the planned amphibious assault on Taiwan, and then develop itself into a force capable of defending China’s airspace and waters.

The Korean War provided the impetus for the rapid expansion of the air force in both aviation personnel and equipment. A large number of officers and troops were transferred from ground forces to form 26 aviation divisions, four independent regiments, and eight aviation and three mechanical schools operat­ing throughout the conflict on the Korean Peninsula.5 The existing ground force structure was simply grafted onto the air force, and army officers were chosen to command the air force. The PLAAF leadership was accustomed to believe that the building of an air force on the foundation of the ground forces was a nec­essary principle for its future success. Thus, its primary mission was to provide support for ground troops, and the air force would take the victories of ground operations as its own.6 The air force was created as an independent service of the PLA under the direct control of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the highest military authority of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).7 This ground-centric army bias accounts for the PLAAF leadership’s inclination at the time to perceive the air force as a support unit of the PLA. They did not consider airpower essential in a strategic sense, valuing it only for the tactical support it could provide to the ground forces during operations.8 Such thinking, moreover, justified an army-centric and – dominated PLA system that subsequently pre­vented the air force from operating as an independent service.

The Korean War experience was a driving force for the PLAAF to fur­ther emphasize air defense and procurement of fighters to constitute the larg­est and most important element of the Chinese air force. The Chinese lead­ers gleaned a mixed understanding of airpower from the Korean conflict. While recognizing America’s air superiority, Chinese leaders discounted the role airpower had played. They found it particularly interesting that air bom­bardment inflicted fewer casualties upon Communist forces than ground fire. Given their confidence in the human factor—that men could overcome weap – ons—and their own guerrilla war experience, they remained convinced that PLA ground forces could overwhelm stronger opponents and win any future war.9 It is thus not surprising that Chinese political leaders and generals main­tained their view that future wars would be conducted in the context of ground operations, with airpower used to supplement the power of the army. This air defense experience thus resulted in the PLAAF’s continuing to emphasize an air defense strategy and the development of fighter planes, radar, and ground antiaircraft systems, while devoting only a small portion of the overall force structure to delivering limited air-to-surface ordnance.

Throughout the 1950s, the PLAAF constantly engaged in air combat against the Nationalist Chinese air force for the control of airspace over the coastal areas of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces (right across the strait from Tai­wan). Air battles over the Taiwan Strait intensified in the summer of 1958.10 As during the Korean War, the PLAAF took a passive stance and waited to respond to intrusions by the Nationalist air force, which was much smaller, but was thus free to choose the time and method of aerial combat. The PLAAF, by contrast, had to depend on ground control intercept (GCI) to scramble its fighters. Furthermore, the capability of the air force was restricted by politi­cal considerations and the limited range of the MiG-17 fighter. Nevertheless, operations against the Nationalists over the southeast coastal areas in the 1950s gave the Chinese valuable experience in employing airpower in air defense.

This trend continued into the late 1950s and then the 1960s as one major focus of the PLAAF’s day-to-day activity was constantly scrambling its fight­ers to intercept intruding Nationalist and American aircraft, many of them spy planes (in sequence, the McDonnell F2H-2P, Lockheed RF-80C, Lockheed P2V-5, Martin P4M, North American RF-86A/F, Republic RF-84F, North American RF-100A, Martin RB-57A/D, McDonnell RF-101A, various Lock­heed U-2s, Lockheed RF-104G, and unmanned Ryan Firebee drones that routinely flew over Chinese airspace), but also engaging and shooting down aircraft that accidently approached or overflew its borders, including, shortly after the Korean War, a Cathay Pacific DC-4 airliner, and several American aircraft shot down during the Vietnam War.11

The incidents of intruding overflights took place in the midst of an upsurge in political radicalism within the PRC that emphasized political fac­tors and the promotion of Mao’s cult of personality. The downing of every intruder was described more like a political victory than a military one. Cele­brations were held and awards were given to those involved in combat actions. Senior party and state leaders, including Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, always received the men responsible for the shoot-downs, making head­line news across the country. Senior military leaders also used these events to promote the air force, proclaiming that “all military services must learn from the air force.”12 Chinese accounts of the PLAAF’s role in these conflicts, including a claim that the PLAAF is the only air force in the world to have ever defeated the U. S. Air Force (USAF), have become important components of the service tradition, continuing to influence the Chinese air force to think of itself in a continuum linking the past to the present, and thence to the future.13