As a result, there is little possibility of China's air force emerging as a serious global offensive threat in the early 21st century, given current and expected political, economic, and military conditions.
Those are the conclusions of a new RAND analysis of the history and capabilities of China's air force. The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) professes no coherent strategic doctrine, lacks funds for a comprehensive modernization program, flies outmoded equipment, has ill-trained pilots and ground personnel, possesses no midair refueling capabilities, and cannot rely on domestic Chinese manufacturers to develop and produce advanced airpower weapon systems, the study argues.
The bottom line, according to Kenneth W. Allen, Glenn Krumel, and Jonathan D. Pollack in China's Air Force Enters the 21st Century, is that, even though it has the world's third-largest air arm, China is nowhere close to being able to project military power globally through the PLAAF.
The bulk of China's air force fleet is obsolete. All but a handful of its 4,000 fighters, 400 ground-attack aircraft, and 120 bombers are based on 1950s and 1960s technology. The vast majority of these aircraft are well over a decade old, and many will reach the end of their service lives during the next 10 years and are slated to be retired with only limited numbers of replacement aircraft likely to enter the air force inventory.
In the early 1990s, China introduced some two dozen Russian-made Su-27 advanced tactical fighters into its air force. While more acquisitions are likely, their pace and scale will be incremental and will not fundamentally upset Asia's airpower balance. And even with additional planes, the size of China's fighter fleet will shrink dramatically during the next 10 years, likely ending up only half as large in 2005 as it is today.
China's air force has not been tested in combat since the thick of the Vietnam war, 30 years ago. During China's 1979 border war with Vietnam, its air force played no combat role, and PLAAF fighters stayed well away from hostilities.
The RAND analysis concludes that challenges in five areas constrain China's ability to mount a credible offensive air threat: leadership and strategy, manpower, technology and infrastructure, budgets, and competition.
The PLAAF's strategic options are restricted by inadequate command and control systems and outdated air defense systems, and there is little prospect of improving either in the near future. This means that other roles for the air force--providing close ground support or being involved in combined warfare operations with other military branches, for example--play little part in current PLAAF doctrine.
At the same time, the structure of China's military establishment hampers innovative leadership in the PLAAF. China's air force and navy are departments within the army, rather than independent services. The PLAAF commander is one of 20 on the army general staff, roughly equal in stature to one of China's seven military region commanders. This structure makes it difficult to develop an independent officer corps with distinct professional objectives.
Obsolete aircraft, rudimentary simulators and strictly regimented training regimes continue to limit China's pilot instruction. Fighter pilots do not fly as many hours as their Western counterparts (100 to 110 hours per year versus approximately 180 hours for U.S. pilots). They typically train on simulators that are two or three generations behind those used by more modern air forces. And their in-air exercises and maneuvers are rigidly controlled by ground-control operators, which severely restricts the ability of trainees to test their skills and the capabilities of their aircraft.
These problems continue to manifest themselves in China's aircraft production industry. The PLAAF's capabilities in most critical technologies--avionics, system integration, turbofan engines, composites, for example--remain highly underdeveloped. The Chinese recognize these shortcomings and have turned to foreign sources for assistance. Russia has been its principal foreign technology source in recent years. China's 1992 purchase of 26 Su-27 fighters, one of the world's most modern attack aircraft, cost upwards of $1 billion.
China's effort to develop its new multirole F-10 combat aircraft has received avionics, airframe, and radar technologies adapted from the Israeli Lavi fighter, although the precise extent of Israeli assistance remains unclear. China also turned briefly to the United States for help upgrading the fire-control system on F-8 II interceptors, but that program was suspended after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in June 1989 and was subsequently canceled.
But even with outside assistance, China remains committed to manufacturing self-sufficiency. Technology transfer has proven to be protracted, but has allowed Chinese manufacturers time to master development and production skills. However, Chinese factories today remain incapable of coproducing two different aircraft at the same time. And even if the plants were able to build sophisticated, high-tech weapon systems, it is unlikely that the air force would be able to integrate them into their forces in large numbers until well beyond the turn of the century.
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