China’s rapid economic growth over the last two decades has allowed the country to significantly modernise its defence forces – and none more so than the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). Over the last twenty years, the PLAAF has been transformed through an extensive but focused re-equipment program.
As a result of this re-equipment, the PLAAF’s fighter force has dramatically changed. In two decades it has gone from having an obsolete, 1950s era fighter force to today having a highly capable, up-to-date fighter force equalled only by the USAF and the Russian Air Force. For Asia Pacific air forces, large and small, the PLAAF fighter force has become the benchmark to compare against.
This modernisation program continues apace with the objective being to make the PLAAF into a ‘strategic air force’. Indeed in 2014 Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that the country must “accelerate [its]construction of a powerful people’s air force… in order to support the realization of the China dream and the dream of a strong military”. In this, the PLAAF fighter force modernisation program has been carefully co-ordinated and harmonized with the development of the Chinese aircraft industry. While much has been achieved, as Xi Jinping indicated, this remains a work in progress.
To read the full “China’s great big, very capable fighter force” article by Griffith Asia Institute Visiting Fellow Peter Layton, please visit Australian Air Power.
