The PLAAF’s Evolving Thinking on Airpower

The early 1990s awakened the PLAAF to the realization that China had fallen far behind the West in both technology and doctrinal thinking about air – power. Time and space were no longer the allies of those who were once so con­fident that China’s existing air defense systems could prevent any attacks deep into the nation’s heartland. Serious doubts were raised about the traditional interpretation of China’s defense capabilities, including the common belief that an inferior force could overcome a superior enemy. Drawing on lessons learned from Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, the Chinese central military leadership pointed out that “a weaker force relying solely on the defensive would place itself in the position of having to receive blows,” and that only by “taking active offen­sive operations” could the weaker force now seize the initiative.25

China’s evolving security interests, including the longstanding prospect of a decisive confrontation with Taiwan, also favored consideration of aug­menting the PLAAF’s offensive capabilities. Since 1993, Beijing has adopted a new military strategy, placing an emphasis on fighting and winning a future regional war under high-technology conditions along China’s periphery. The momentum of the independence movement in Taiwan was simultaneously viewed as an increasingly serious challenge to China’s sovereignty and secu – rity.26 The central military leadership made the proper readjustment to the air force’s strategic missions, requiring it to maintain strong capabilities not only for defensive operations, but also for offensive ones.

The air force’s new mission requirements include securing air dominance over China’s own airspace, supporting the army and the navy, and directing paratrooper operations, as well as carrying out independent air campaigns. In an offensive campaign, it should be able to launch attacks against the enemy’s air assets on the ground in a potential local conflict along China’s coast.27

In early March 1999, Jiang Zemin, former secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and president of China, explicated the air force’s stra­tegic objective: to transform gradually from a homeland air defense force to one that was capable of both defensive and offensive operations. He then charged the air force to “bear the brunt of, and be employed throughout the entire course” of the conflict, and “to complete certain strategic missions independently.”28 To achieve these objectives, China later that year adopted a three-step implementa­tion strategy for air force development over the next several decades.29

According to its 2008 Defense White Paper, China expected to lay a solid foundation for the development of the PLA into a more high-tech and more balanced network-centric joint force by 2010, to accomplish mechanization and make major progress in informatization by 2020, and to reach the goal of modernizing national defense and the armed forces by the middle of the 21st century.30 This constituted a logical follow-on to a strategic vision the PLAAF introduced in 2004. That year, the PLAAF enunciated a new strategic vision calling for the development of a long-range strategic air force and the active involvement of integrated air and space (Й^—Ф) operations with information and firepower systems (®,Л®Л_Ф).31

Under the guidance of such a developmental strategy, the PLAAF embarked on a two-stage transformation. The first stage is laying a framework for a force capable of both offensive and defensive operations by increasing the number of high-performance offensive aircraft, combat support aircraft, and advanced surface-to-air missile systems. The second stage is wielding fighter air­craft, surface-based defense, and command, control, communication, and intel­ligence elements into an integrated operational system that is able to conduct both air offensive and defensive operations under “informatized” conditions.

The development of China’s air force capabilities focuses on four areas:32

■ offensive capability to protect national security and national interests from the air and space

■ integrated air defensive and antimissile capability for monitoring both air and space flying objects and attacking them

■ superior capability over its main opponent (presumably Taiwan) and certain counter-information capability against its strategic opponent (presumably the United States)

■ strategic airlift capability to conduct both airlift and airdrop opera­tions.