Chinese Aerospace Power

China's aircraft carrier program is making major waves well before the first ship has been completed. Undoubtedly, this development heralds a new era in Chinese national security policy. While the present volume presents substantial new insight on that particular question, its focus is decidedly broader in scope. Chinese Aerospace Power offers a comprehensive survey of Chinese aerospace developments, with a focus on areas of potential strategic significance previously unexplored in Western scholarship. The book also links these developments to the vast maritime battlespace of the Asia-Pacific region and highlights the consequent implications for the U.S. military, particularly the U.S. Navy.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) continues to develop rapidly across all aspects, hardware, technology, personnel, and organizational structure, etc. The PLA's aerospace forces are, in many ways, leading that change. These include the PLA Air Force (PLAAF), PLA Naval Aviation, PLA Rocket Force (PLARF), and space and cyber assets affiliated with the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). This second edition from the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), seeks to provide a brief primer on the trends affecting these forces and provide basic information about their composition and role today.This publication outlines the roles and missions of China's aerospace forces, the PLAAF and its five branches, the PLARF, and the PLASSF. It also identifies trends in PLA aerospace training and operational proficiency for these forces and discusses the near-term outlook. This publication is intended to serve as foundational work, capturing a snapshot of capabilities, and an outline of organizations and key personnel, while identifying trends underway at the time of its writing in early 2019.CASI supports the United States Defense Department and the China research community writ-large by providing high quality, unclassified research on Chinese aerospace developments in the context of U.S. strategic imperatives in the Indo-Pacific region. Primarily focused on China's Military Air, Space, and Missile Forces, CASI capitalizes on publicly available native language resources to gain insights as to how the Chinese speak to and among one another on these topics.With this second edition, CASI continues to describe the fundamentals in the field. Further research projects will expand on the framework laid out in this primer and will both expand and deepen public knowledge of developments in Chinese aerospace. While primarily focused on developments related to the services and branches of the PLA's aerospace assets and forces, CASI also explores topics and areas related to the support infrastructure, industrial base, and military-civil fusion, that combines together to form the overall China aerospace field.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) continues to develop rapidly across all aspects- hardware, technology, personnel, organization, etc. The PLA's aerospace forces are, in many ways, leading that change. These include the PLA Air Force (PLAAF), PLA Rocket Force (PLARF), Naval Aviation, and space and cyber assets affiliated with the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF).This inaugural volume from the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), seeks to provide a brief primer on the trends affecting these forces and provide basic information about their composition and role today.This publication outlines the roles and missions of China's aerospace forces, the PLA Air Force and its five branches, the PLA Rocket Force, and the PLAStrategic Support Force. It also identifies trends in PLA aerospace training and operational proficiency for these forces, and discusses the near-term outlook. There is a plethora of information, which evolves on an almost constant basis, available to leaders and policymakers on the hardware and technical aspects of these forces. As such, that is not the focus of this publication. Rather, this work is intended to serve as foundational work, capturing a snapshot of capabilities, and an outline of organizations, while identifying trends underway at the time ofits writing, late 2016 to summer 2017.

Provides a comprehensive evaluation of how the Chinese aerospace technologies, industrial capability, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and various other elements of air and space are getting into place. The book offers an understanding of the current status and unfolding future of Chinese aerospace power.

China has emerged as a major regional power and has clear aspirations to be a global power in the not too distant future. Comprehensive military modernisation programs, sustained economic, scientific and technological developments have substantially elevated China’s international profile. For the past three decades, China has been modernising its strategic weaponry and enhancing the capabilities of its nuclear warheads. It has also been developing new and complex military platforms that would be of great value to joint operations warfare. The decade from 2011 through 2020 will prove critical to the PLA as it attempts to integrate many new and complex platforms, and to adopt modern operational concepts, including network-centric warfare. China’s air force is in the midst of a transformation. A decade ago, it was an antiquated service equipped almost exclusively with weapons based on 1950s-era Soviet designs and operated by personnel with questionable training according to outdated employment concepts. Today, the PLAAF appears to be on its way to becoming a modern, highly capable air force for the 21st century. The PLA Air Force has continued expanding its inventory of long-range, advanced SAM systems and now possesses one of the largest such forces in the world. The January 2011 flight test of China’s next generation fighter prototype, the J-20, highlights China’s ambition to produce a fighter aircraft that incorporates stealth attributes, advanced avionics, and super-cruise capable engines over the next several years. China is upgrading its B-6 bomber fleet with a new, longer-range variant that will be armed with a new long-range cruise missile. China’s aviation industry is developing several types of airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft. These include the KJ-200, based on the Y-8 airframe, for AWACS as well as intelligence collection and maritime surveillance, and the KJ-2000, based on a modified Russian IL-76 airframe. China can decisively defeat India in any nuclear confrontation, but is currently unable to match the IAF in any conventional conflict, specifically along the border region of the Himalayas. Also, the IAF has greater experience than PLAAF in actual combat operations with its many conflicts; India is gradually building powerful military capabilities in tune with its expanding geopolitical interests, even as the eastern and western fronts are being strengthened to deter the twin Pakistan-China threat. IAF is on the path to transform into a true aerospace power with the capability to rapidly deploy and operate at great distances. As for the two-front challenge, apart from progressively basing Sukhoi-30MKI fighters and missile squadrons in the two theatres, the plan also includes upgrading the airfields and advanced landing grounds in the sectors in order to give both defensive and offensive options. It is important for India to realise the relevance of Chinese achievements in space technologies and to critically view and analyse Chinese achievements in the area of manned space missions In order to achieve further success in the space arena, developments in cryogenic technology are important for India. These should be pursued in order to develop the capability of launching 4-5 ton satellites, which will help in achieving a greater commercial edge. Programmes like moon and mars missions, using robotic technologies, are also important in order to know more about the nature of resources, especially minerals, available on these bodies and undertaking their mining. It is also important to work towards launching satellites for India’s armed forces, which will help gain an advantage over adversaries. The book is an attempt to analyse the strategic importance of rising economic, political and military stature of China with a view to understand its regional and global implications in a new world order. As a rational actor in a chaotic world, China will defend its security interests at all costs. Besides undertaking a comprehensive modernisation of its armed forces, China is developing a series of offensive space capabilities while advocating the peaceful use of outer space. The book will be of immense value not only to the readers of the countries in the immediate neighbourhood of China, but to the strategic community across the globe since rise of China and other major Asian players including India will shape the strategic international environment in the decades to come during this century. It is hoped that the book will contribute to the understanding of the growing importance of integration of air and space and the fact that aerospace has truly become the new theatre of war and thereby establishing a new milestone in mankind’s history of warfare. The unifying space dimension will remain the single most important source for information and communication which can be used in multiple forms. Hence, China’s aerospace strategy and its implications for India assume greater military importance.

This report examines how competition with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) shapes Chinese thinking about developing military aerospace power. It also examines how China selects between "copying" foreign powers and "innovating" its own solutions.

By the turn of the century China had reaffirmed its position as one of the world's leading military powers. With much importance attached to fleet renewal; the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the Naval Aviation are fielding new types, emphasis shifting from local derivatives of Russian or western types to indigenously developed aircraft and helicopters. The book focuses on the current PLAAF/PLANAF order of battle and describes the most advanced aircraft types currently in service or due to enter service. Among the many aircraft reviewed in this volume are the Chengdu J-10 single-engine fourth-generation fighter in service since 2003, fifth-generation fighters like the twin-engin, tail-first Chengdu J-20, and the smaller Shenyang J-31 fifth-generation light fighter. Deliveries of Xian H-6K missile carriers, the Chinese version of the Tupolev Tu-16 bomber, are continuing, the H-6N with inflight refueling capability, entering service in 2019. Transport aviation is not forgotten either. China has also been building an aircraft carrier fleet equipped with the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark shipboard fighter derived from the Sukhoi Su-33. The latest addition to the Chinese Army Aviation's arsenal is the Harbin Z-20 medium utility helicopter which looks like the Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk. Numbers of the CAIC Z-10 attack helicopter and the lighter Harbin Z-19 attack helicopter are also now operational. Unmanned aerial vehicles are also reviewed in this comprehensive survey.

This vital report from a distinguished international group of experts on airpower, military affairs, and the People's Republic of China PRC - Taiwan relationship examines the present state and future prospects of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The report was produced by the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs (CSCMA) of the National Defense University. In the ongoing military buildup by the People's Republic of China, one of the crucial areas of concern is the force disparity between the PRC and Taiwan. The traditional technological edge that Taiwan's military air-power forces enjoyed over the mainland is a thing of the past. Where a decade ago, Taiwan's airmen flew aircraft that were at least one, and in some cases two, technological generations superior to those of the PRC, today they are already in a position of inferiority, with their aging F-16A/B, AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-Kuo, and Mirage 2000 fighters increasingly outclassed and outnumbered by newer PRC aircraft such as the Su-27, J-10, J-11, and Su-30 aircraft. Where a decade ago, Taiwan's airmen could operate with relative impunity over the Taiwan Strait, facing a limited-range surface-to-air missile threat built around derivatives of the then 40-year-old Khrushchev-era SA-2, today they face far more dangerous S-300 (SA-10/20) systems that deny access over the strait, and the prospect of the S-400 which, installed along the coast of the PRC, will reach across the strait and beyond Taiwan itself. Coupled with the PRC's introduction of precision air-to-surface munitions, air refueling, airborne early warning, large numbers of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, land attack cruise missiles, and an increased emphasis on electronic and cyber warfare, the challenges facing Taiwan's air defenders have never been graver than at the present time. Significantly, because of the longstanding ties between the United States and Taiwan, any prospect of cross-strait conflict carries with it the implicit risk of igniting a broader and even more devastating conflict. Clearly, it is in the interest of all parties to ensure that the PRC-Taiwan relationship evolves in a peaceful, mutually beneficial fashion. Beijing's missile-centric strategy presents a number of challenges for regional stability. Barring the fielding of effective countermeasures, Chinese conventional aerospace power, specifically short- and medium-range ballistic and extended-range land attack cruise missiles, may over time give the PLA a decisive advantage in future conflicts around China's periphery. Contents: Foreword * I: CONCEPTS * Chapter 1 - The Concept of Airpower: Its Emergence, Evolution, and Future * Chapter 2 - China's Quest for Joint Aerospace Power: Concepts and Future Aspirations * Chapter 3 - The PLAAF's Evolving Influence within the PLA and upon National Policy * II: ORGANIZATION, LEADERSHIP, AND DOCTRINE * Chapter 4 - The Organizational Structure of the PLAAF * Chapter 5 - The Missions of the People's Liberation Army Air Force * Chapter 6 - The Development of the PLAAF's Doctrine * Chapter 7 - The PLAAF and the Integration of Air and Space Power * III: EQUIPMENT, PERSONNEL, AND EDUCATION / TRAINING * Chapter 8 - Equipping the PLAAF: The Long March to Modernity * Chapter 9 - Meeting the Challenge of the Upcoming PLAAF Leadership Reshuffle * Chapter 10 - Education and Training in the PLAAF * IV: INDUSTRIES AND MILITARY IMPLICATIONS * Chapter 11 - China's Aviation Industry: Past, Present, and Future * Chapter 12 - China's Quest for Advanced Aviation Technologies * Chapter 13 - The Employment of Airpower in the Taiwan Strait * Chapter 14 - The U.S.-China Military Balance Seen in a Three-Game Framework