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Over the past fifty years, the PLAAF has endeavored to undertake an exceptionally broad range of operational missions. The first mission the CMC assigned to the PLAAF in 1949 was the air defense of Beijing and Shanghai against Nationalist air raids. This mission expanded to include northeast China during the Korean War and to the southeast provinces during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis. Although Western writings normally refer to air defense as including aircraft, AAA, and SAMs, the PLAAF makes a clear distinction between its aviation troops (aircraft) and air defense (AAA/SAM) troops.

Today, the PLAAF still describes its primary mission as defending China's territorial airspace. However, this mission can best be described as defending China's major cities and industrial areas, which can clearly be seen by looking at the location of the PLAAF's airfields, combat aircraft, SAMs, and AAA. As the PLAAF acquires aircraft and SAMs with longer ranges, these envelopes will gradually expand. Although the PLAAF states that its secondary mission is supporting ground and naval forces, it has never successfully carried out direct support to the ground troops and officially states that it can only support them indirectly. The PLAAF still describes a joint exercise as having aircraft airborne at the same time that its own SAM and AAA units or that some ground force units are active in a different area. It is also questionable just how much the PLAAF can actually support the ground and naval forces in the future. The PLAAF lacks the proper aircraft and joint experience to accomplish close air support or interdiction and has only recently made nascent inroads into the over water training necessary for naval air support. Support for the naval forces is left up primarily to the Naval air force.

Published PLAAF sources also refer to informal, tertiary missions, such as assisting socialist construction, providing air services for disaster relief and air rescues, and artificial rainmaking support for farmers. (27) The PLAAF also supports other maritime activities. For example, according to a May 1998 Xinhua report from Guangzhou, the PLAAF was to conduct inspection flights in the coastal waters off Guangdong Province, as well as the Zhujiang River delta area, in order to enforce the May to September fishing ban. Guangdong Province and the South China Sea Branch of the National Bureau of Oceanography had requested the inspections in order to counter serious problems in excessive, unpaid, and disorderly utilization of maritime resources. (28)

In the absence of broader PLAAF mission statements, one must look at the PLAAF's organizational structure, operational branch functions, force locations, weapon systems, and planned weapons acquisitions, in order to analyze the PLAAF's full range of missions.

Administratively, the PLAAF's chain-of-command is organized into four levels: headquarters air force; seven military region air force (MRAF) headquarters; air corps and command posts; and operational units. (29) Headquarters Air Force is equivalent to the US Air Force's Air Staff and is organized administratively into four first level or major departments - headquarters, political, logistics, and equipment - and their subordinate elements (second level departments, bureaus, divisions, offices, and sections). (30) The PLA's military region (MR) headquarters is responsible for combined operations, and the MRAF commander, who is also an MR deputy commander, is responsible for flight operations within the MR. The seven military regions are Shenyang, Beijing, Lanzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Jinan, and Chengdu. Each echelon below Headquarters Air Force from the MRAF headquarters to the lowest level in the chain-of-command basically mirrors this administrative structure.

In order to perform its operational missions, the PLAAF is organized into branches - aviation, AAA, SAM, radar, and communications. The PLA's airborne troops belong to the Air Force, and sometimes, but not always, are noted as the PLAAF's sixth branch. The PLAAF also has schools, logistics units, repair facilities, research institutes, hospitals, and sanitoriums as part of its organizational structure. The Air Force's Logistics Department has its own water transport craft and boat troops to ship fuel to PLAAF units along the Yangzi River and coast. The PLAAF's political structure ensures Party control at all levels. (31) By looking at modernization of the PLAAF's six branches, it is possible to understand more fully the scope of the Air Force's operations and capabilities.

The PLAAF was formed around its aviation troops (hangkongbing), which remain the Air Force's main arm. The aviation troops are organized into fighters, ground attack aircraft, bombers, transports, and reconnaissance aircraft. These aircraft are organized into air divisions, regiments, groups, squadrons, and associated maintenance, logistics, and support units. The support units are organized into regiments, battalions, and companies. There are also independent air regiments and groups, which conduct specialized missions, such as operational test and evaluation of equipment, reconnaissance and surveying, troop transport, and reforestation. For the most part, these special mission aircraft include reconnaissance fighters and Il-14 and Yun-5 transports. Air divisions can be directly subordinate to Headquarters Air Force, an MRAF headquarters, an air corps, or a command post.

A typical air division headquarters consists of the command staff and administrative organization. These organizations are responsible for combat, training, political training, supply, and maintenance support for the division. Each division and regiment has a Party committee and a standing committee, of which the political commissar serves as the secretary for both committees. The division's Party committee consists of the standing committee, which includes the division's command staff, plus the commanders and political commissars of each subordinate regiment.

Because the PLAAF has historically been synonymous with the aviation troops, the Headquarters Department's second level Operations Department has basically functioned as the Aviation Troop Department. The Operations Department also is responsible for the airborne troops. This is in contrast to the separate second level departments that have been established for the radar, communications, and AAA/SAM branches. This separation of aviation and air defense permeates the entire chain-of-command, keeping administrative firewalls between the aviators and the rest of the PLAAF. (32)