Aviation
PLA Air Force Operations and Modernization
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PLA Air Force Operation and Modernization
by Kenneth W. Allen
End Notes (1/3)
1) "Jiefangjun Bao Calls For Stronger Air Force," Hong Kong AFP, 7 April 1996 (FBIS-CHI-96-068, 7 April 1996).
2) "China: PRC Air Force Plans Weapons Advances," Xinhua, 14 April 1997 (FBIS-CHI-97?104, 14 April 1997).
3) "Deputy Commander Says Air Force Improves Combat Readiness," Xinhua, 20 January 1999 (FBIS-CHI-99-020, 20 January 1999). These comments were made during a work conference on Air Force training.
4) Oliver Chou, "President calls for hi-tech push by Air Force," South China Morning Post, 3 March 1999.
5) While researching this paper, the author reviewed numerous articles written about the PLAAF from within and outside of China, hosted a series of meetings on Airpower in Asia, and visited Taiwan, Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India, to conduct interviews about the PLAAF.
6) Dangdai Zhongguo Kongjun [China Today: Air Force], (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 1989). PLAAF Headquarters Education and Research Office, Kongjun Shi [History of the Air Force], (Beijing: PLA Press, November 1989). The PLAAF describes these air battles as occurring during involvement in "liberating Tibet," the "War to Resist America and Aid Korea," numerous engagements with Nationalist and U.S. aircraft over the Taiwan Strait, the "War to Aid Vietnam and Resist U.S. Aggression," and the 1979 "self-defensive counterattack" against Vietnam. During the Korean War, the Chinese Air Force reportedly shot down 330 American planes and damaged 95. During the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis, PLAAF data indicates the air force and naval air force aircraft shot down fourteen and damaged nine aircraft. During the Vietnam War, the PLAAF states that its AAA units were involved in 558 battles, shooting down 597 U.S. aircraft and damaging 479. Like the figures cited during the Korean War and Taiwan Strait Crisis, they may not agree with Western figures. In addition to aircraft that its AAA shot down over Vietnam, the PLAAF history describes in detail how its pilots shot down three U.S. Air Force (one F-4B and two A-4B's) and two Navy (one A-3B and one A-6) aircraft and seventeen unmanned reconnaissance drones over or near Chinese territory. The official PLA Naval Air Force history also identifies two U.S. drones and four aircraft (F-4B, F-104C, F-4C, and A-1) that naval air force pilots shot down over Hainan Island. No air combat took place during the 1979 border conflict with Vietnam. The August 1998 issue of Xiandai Junshi is devoted to the 70th anniversary of the PLA and carries additional information about aircraft the PLAAF shot down during the 1950s and 1960s.
7) Over the past 15 years, China has improved its marketing techniques for aviation equipment and has hosted an annual airshow at Zhuhai. One of the problems associated with this, however, is that some analysts assume that the aviation ministry and PLAAF have incorporated or are going to incorporate the systems being marketed by Chinese research institutes and companies into PLAAF aircraft. This is not necessarily the case. Many of the systems are marketed for sale abroad only and are not for domestic use. Furthermore, some analysts assume that just because Russian salesmen appear at Zhuhai and say the Chinese are interested in their systems, that China is going to purchase them.
8) For an overview of the PLAAF's logistics and maintenance capabilities see Kenneth W. Allen, "PLA Air Force Logistics and Maintenance: What Has Changed?" in The People's Liberation Army in the Information Age, James C. Mulvenon and Richard H. Yang, (RAND, 1999), 79-97.
9) Sun Maoqing, "PLA Commander on Modernizing Air Force," Liaowang, 14 April 1997 No. 15, (FBIS) 20?21. Hua Chun, Chang Tun-Hua, Kuo Kai, "Air Force Trains Crack Units Troops for Offensive, Defensive Operations" Interviewing Lieutenant General Liu Shunyao, PLA Air Force Commander," Hong Kong Ming Pao, 2 August 1997 (FBIS-CHI-97-226, 2 August 1997). Speech by Liu Shunyao, "Comprehensively Push Forward PLA Modernization Building," Jiefangjun Bao, 24 December 1998 (FBIS).
10) Ibid. The whole issue of the PLA's rapid reaction (kuaisu fanying) or fist (quantou) units is rather murky, especially as they pertain to the Air Force. According to Gurtov, Mel, and Hwang, Byong-Mao, China's Security: The New Roles of the Military, (Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1998) 107-108, the PLA has RRFs and rapid deployment forces (RDFs), which comprise around eleven percent of the total ground forces. The RRF is composed of airborne units and light infantry units. They are equipped with light weapons and depend entirely upon air transportation, including transports and helicopters. They are expected to react to rapidly to border disputes, minority rebellions, and political violence (the airborne forces were utilized in Tiananmen during June 1989). The RDFs are equipped with heavy weapons and will quickly deploy to deal with any contingencies, only after its RRF reacts. Gurtov and Hwang do not mention anything about aviation RRF units.
11) The PLAAF's definition of flying in "weather conditions" is divided into "three weather conditions" (i.e., day and night visual flight rules [VFR], and day instrument flight rules [IFR]), and "all-weather" or "four weather conditions" which adds night IFR flights. Although this particular reference does not mean being able to fly in poor weather conditions, some reference to flying in weather conditions does mean exactly that. The exact meaning is usually clear. The activity in 1998-1999 compares to information from 1991, where seventy percent of PLAAF pilots at that time were qualified as all-weather pilots. Training in 1991 also included low-altitude flying, minimum-altitude flying, air combat, high-altitude air acrobatics, and transregional movement. Eighty percent of the PLAAF's air combat regiments had reportedly taken part in multi-service and multi-arm tactical exercises in 1991. Kenneth W. Allen, Glenn Krumel, and Jonathan D. Pollack, China's Air Force Enters the 21st Century (Santa Monica: RAND, 1995), 130.
12) Huang Qiang, "Will China's Aviation Industry Be Able to Get Out of the Doldrums Soon?" Keji Ribao [Science and Technology Daily], 8 July 1999, (FBIS-CHI-1999-0811, 8 July 1999).
13) The PLAAF has about twenty research institutes. Eight are subordinate to the Scientific Research Department within the Headquarters Department, each of which have about 180-200 personnel. In addition, the Logistics Department also has at least eight subordinate institutes. Other departments also have specialized research institutes. Allen, Kenneth W., People's Republic of China, People's Liberation Army Air Force, Washington, D.C.: Defense Intelligence Agency, May 1991, Section 17.
14) For a detailed analysis of this revised national military strategy, see Nan Li, "The PLA's Evolving Warfighting Doctrine, Strategy, and Tactics, 1985-95: A Chinese View," and Paul H.B. Godwin, "From Continent to Periphery: PLA Doctrine, Strategy, and Capabilities Toward 2000," both in David S. Shambaugh and Richard H. Yang, eds. China's Military in Transition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 284-312. See also James Harris, et. al., "Chinese Defense Policy and Military Strategy in the 1990s," China's Economic Dilemmas in the 1990s: The Problems of Reforms, Modernization, and Interdependence (Washington DC: Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, April 1991), 648-649. The concept of active defense means taking tactically offensive action within a basically defensive strategy. The defending forces undertake offensive operations to wear down the adversary while he is strategically on the offensive and attacking. It is the opposite of passive defense, which means the defending forces simply resist without attempting to weaken the adversary as he prepares to attack or is actually on the offensive. The active defense strategy consists of three phases: strategic defense, strategic stalemate, and strategic counterattack.
15) Paul H.B. Godwin, "Compensating for Deficiencies: Doctrinal Evolution in the Chinese People's Liberation Army," presented at the 1999 CAPS-RAND PLA Conference, 7, 43.
16) Hua Renjie, Cao Yifeng, and Chen Huixiu, editors, "Kongjun Xueshu Sixiang Shi," Jiefangjun Publishers, Beijing, 1991, 312-131.
17) Sun Maoqing, "Make Efforts To Build Modernized People's Air Force: Interview With Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Liu Shunyao," Beijing Liaowang, 14 April 1997, No 15, 20-21.
18) "Junshi Jingji Yanjiu [Military Economics Studies]," No. 8, 1995.
19) "PLA Airborne Brigades Become Divisions," Jane's Defence Weekly, Vol 20, No. 14, 2 October 1993, 12.
20) "The Security Situation in the Taiwan Strait," Report submitted by Secretary of Defense William Cohen to the US Senate as directed by the FY99 Appropriations Bill, 17 February 1999.
21) Sun Maoqing, "Make Efforts To Build Modernized People's Air Force: Interview With Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Liu Shunyao," Beijing Liaowang, FBIS, 14 April 1997, No 15, 20-21.
22) "China Employs Hi?Tech Equipment in Training To Improve Air Force Fighting Capacity," Hong Kong Sing Tao Jih Pao, 18 July 1997. The PLAAF has written several articles emphasizing that airborne forces have been training with a new type of parachute.
23) "Airborne Units Conduct Training Exercise in Tibet," Beijing Xinhua, FBIS, 29 June 1999.
24) "Chinese Exercise Strait 961: 8-25 March 1996," briefing presented by the US Office of Naval Intelligence at a conference on the PRC's military modernization sponsored by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, 11 March 1997. Although Commander Liu has touted the airborne army's all-weather capabilities, they are limited by the plane's capabilities to get them there.
25) Interviews during April-June with air force officers in Asia. Although interviews during April through June 1999 indicate that the PLAAF has established certain aviation units as RRF units, particularly those with J-7, J-8, and Su-27 fighters, no open source material was found to corroborate their analysis. Even so, the PLAAF probably has organized certain aviation units as RRF units.
26) Nan Li, "The PLA's Evolving Warfighting Doctrine, Strategy, and Tactics, 1985-95: A Chinese View," in David S. Shambaugh and Richard H. Yang, eds. China's Military in Transition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
27) Shijie Junshi Nianjian [World Military Yearbook], was published by PLA Press, Beijing, in 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992. Each yearbook provided progressively greater detail about the PLA's organizational structure.
28) "Air Force, Navy To Enforce Fishing Ban in South China Sea," Beijing Xinhua, 7 May 1998.
29) The term kongjun means the Air Force as a whole, but it also means Headquarters Air Force. Subordinate elements in the chain-of-command include the seven military region air forces/MRAFs (junqu kongiun), air corps (jun/kongiun jun), command posts (zhihuisuo), and operational units (budui), which include air divisions (shi/kongiun shi/hangkong bing shi), brigades (lu), regiments (tuan), groups (dadui), squadrons (zhongdui), battalions (ying), companies (lian), platoons (pai), and squads (ban). The Air Force, which is a service (junzhong), is composed of five branches (bingzhong).
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