Current PLAAF Doctrine

Chinese military doctrine is codified in “campaign guidance” and “com­bat regulation” ($-4^"Ф) documents, equivalent to the U. S. Department of Defense’s Joint Publication (JP) doctrinal series. China’s Central Military Com­mission issues campaign guidance documents for each of its services, including the PLAAF, as well as a joint campaign guidance document. The PLAAF thus does not have the freedom of doctrinal development that, for example, the U. S. Air Force does with its Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) series. The PLA – rooted PLAAF campaign guidance includes “standard military guidelines for PLAAF campaign operations” and is the “fundamental basis for the Air Force campaign group to organize campaign operations and exercises.”59 Signed in 1999 by China’s top military leadership, its contents are said to include the nature of air force campaigns, basic campaign types, and campaign principles; air force campaign organization for command and coordination mechanisms; the campaign guiding thought, operational tasks, and operational methods for air force offensive campaigns, defensive campaigns, air blockade campaigns, and coordination with ground, naval, and Second Artillery Force campaign operations; campaign electronic countermeasures; campaign airborne duties and demands; and requirements and basic methods of campaign operational support: logistic support, armament support, and political support.60

In addition to its overall campaign guidance, the PLAAF has combat regulations for “composite force combat” (£^і&4^Ф) and for fighter avia­tion, attack aviation, bomber aviation, reconnaissance aviation, transport avia­tion, SAM, AAA, airborne, electronic warfare (EW), radar, communications, chemical warfare defense, and technical reconnaissance force combat.61 Like the campaign guidance, however, the combat regulation documents are clas­sified. Any information on the PLAAF’s doctrine, therefore, must be derived from reference works and textbooks that are believed to be based on and con­sistent with these documents, but cannot be regarded as equivalent to them.62