The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), also known as Chinese Air Force or PLA Air Force is the primary aerial warfare service of the People's Liberation Army. The PLAAF controls most of the PLA's air assets, including tactical aircraft, large airlifters, and strategic bombers. It includes ground-based air defense assets, including national early-warning radars, and controls the Airborne Corps.
The PLAAF traces its origins to the establishment of a small aviation unit by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1924, during the early years of the Republic of China, which received training from the Soviet Air Forces. The formal establishment of the PLAAF occurred on 11 November 1949, following the CCP's victory in the Chinese Civil War. Early on, the PLAAF operated a mix of captured Kuomintang and Soviet aircraft, first fighting in the Korean War, primarily using the Soviet MiG-15 fighter, against the United States Air Force (USAF). The PLAAF then shifted to enhancing air defense capabilities following political decisions to limit offensive operations. The 1960s and 1970s saw strained resources and technical support from the Sino-Soviet split, while the Cultural Revolution weakened development and readiness. In the 1980s, the PLAAF was reformed via force reduction and modernizing air power technology. These efforts were somewhat hampered by the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, which resulted in Western sanctions but eventually led to increased military collaboration with Russia in the 1990s.
In the 21st century, the PLAAF transitioned to more modern airpower with the acquisition of advanced aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-27 and domestic development of the Chengdu J-10. The strategic orientation of the PLAAF continued to evolve with a focus enhancing joint operational capacity with other branches of the Chinese military. With the Chengdu J-20 fighter's service in 2017, the PLAAF became the world's second air force to field an indigenous crewed stealth aircraft after the USAF; at 250 units as of 2025 it is the world's second largest stealth aircraft fleet. The PLAAF maintains the Xi'an H-6 strategic bomber, including the H-6K conventional variant and H-6N variant armed with the JL-1 strategic nuclear missile.
History
Origins Today's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) traces its roots back to September 1924 when a small group of nine cadets from the still-young Chinese Communist Party graduated from Sun Yat-sen's military flight school in Guangzhou. Having only been founded three years prior in July 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formed a united front with the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party against competing warlords in a bid to reunite a fractionalized China. The eighteen graduate pilots of the military flight school, under Sun's Guangzhou Revolutionary Government Aviation Bureau, included nine nationalist and nine communist pilots who were sent to the Soviet Union for two years of advanced flight training under the tutelage of the more experienced Soviet Air Force. Two of the CCP's graduates, Chang Qiankun and Wang Bi, continued to serve in the Soviet Air Force for fourteen years until, in September 1938, they returned to Dihua (now Ürümqi) as instructors. Chang and Wang would play instrumental roles in the founding of the PLAAF.
In January 1941, as intensifying clashes between CCP and KMT forces ended the united front against invading Japanese forces, and despite having neither aircraft nor airfields, the CCP's Central Military Commission (CMC) established the Air Force Engineering School with Wang as commandant and Chang as head instructor. In May 1944, just over a year before the Japanese surrender to Allied forces, the CMC established an Aviation Section in Yan'an with Wang as its director and Chang as deputy director. Two years later in May 1946 and after the withdrawal of Japanese troops, the CMC established the Northeast Old Aviation School in Jilin. By 1949 the Aviation Section of the CMC had 560 trained personnel (125 pilots and 435 ground support specialists), purchased 435 aircraft from the Soviet Union, acquired 115 Nationalist aircraft, and operated seven military flight schools.
Founding The first organized air unit of the People's Liberation Army was formed in July 1949 at Beijing Nanyuan Airport (an airfield built and first operated under the Qing Dynasty). The unit operated American P-51 Mustangs, PT-19s, and British DH.98 Mosquitos.Ken Allen, Chapter 9, "PLA Air Force Organization" , The PLA as Organization, ed. James C. Mulvenon and Andrew N.D. Yang (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002), 349. The squadron had acquired these Western-made aircraft by capturing planes that had been once donated to the KMT for use against the Japanese.
In March 1949, the CMC elevated its Aviation Section to the short-lived Aviation Bureau with Chang Qiankun and Wang Bi appointed as the bureau's director and political commissar, respectively. On 1 October 1949, the victorious communist forces established the People's Republic of China and, on 11 November 1949, the CMC dissolved its Aviation Section, instead founding the People's Liberation Army Air Force. Initially manned by a variety of units taken from the ground forces, the new PLAAF organized its headquarters (PLAAF HQ) in Beijing and organized administrative aviation divisions for each of the PLA's six military regions, later to be named Military Region Air Forces (MRAFs). The new organization, which was not yet seen as a service separate from the army, was headed by ground force commander Liu Yalou with Xiao Hua (formerly a ground force commander and political commissar) as the PLAAF's first political commissar. Chang Qiankun was appointed as a PLAAF deputy commander and as director of the PLAAF's Training Department while Wang Bi was named deputy political commissar and director of the Aeronautical Engineering Department.
In June 1950, the first full PLAAF aviation unit, the 4th Composite Air Brigade () was established in Nanjing based on the 30th Army's 90th Division and commanding the 10th, 11th and 12th Air Regiments. In the same year, the PLAAF created the 2nd and 3rd Composite Air Brigades. Although the 4th Composite Air Brigade would be renamed in 1950 to the PLAAF 4th Air Division, it would become the 1st Air Division in 1956 with the 2nd and 3rd Composite Air Brigades becoming the 2nd and 3rd Air Divisions, respectively.
In 1950, the PLAAF had fewer than 100 fighters.
Korean War to the Sino-Soviet Split
The PLAAF expanded rapidly during the Korean War. Two brigades were created in 1950, but they were disbanded in the early 1950s and replaced by divisions; both unit types had subordinate regiments.Trevethan (2019): pg. 8 During the war, 26 divisions and a smaller number of independent regiments and schools were created by personnel transfers from the army; the air force inherited the army's organization and was commanded by army officers.Xiang (2012): pg. 73 By early 1954, there were 28 divisions, with 70 regiments, and five independent regiments operating 3,000 aircraft. The Soviets provided Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 aircraft (named J-2 in Chinese service), training, and support for developing the domestic aviation industry. Shenyang Aircraft Corporation built the two-seat MiG-15UTI trainer as the JJ-2, and during the war manufactured various components to maintain the Soviet-built fighters.
In 1955, the PLAAF had grown to be the world's third largest air force. By 1956 the People's Republic was assembling licensed copies of MiG-15s and eight years later it was producing both the Shenyang J-5 (MiG-17) and the Shenyang J-6 (MiG-19) under license.
The PLAAF emerged from the war as an air defense force. Its main role was to support the army by achieving air superiority using fighters, radar, and ground-based weapons.Xiang (2012): pg. 73-74 This was reinforced through the 1950s and 1960s when the PLAAF's main activities were skirmishing with the Republic of China Air Force near the Taiwan Strait, and intercepting American aircraft. The PLAAF was passive in applying offensive airpower due to the limited range of capabilities and political considerations.Xiang (2012): pg. 74 PLAAF was used as a deterrent due to the political culture at the time. The Chinese leadership, in many instances, would cancel offensive bombing missions to prevent escalation, affecting the decision-making autonomy of the PLAAF.Xiang (2012): pg. 76-77
In 1960, Soviet engineers and advisors left China due to the Sino-Soviet split; although the Soviet Union granted licensed rights to MiG-15, MiG-17, MiG-19, MiG-21, Il-28, and Tu-16, China didn't retain either the technical materials or the machinery as the Soviet advisors withdrew. China had to reverse-engineer aircraft and missile systems to set up production lines. Internal political and economic chaos from the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution severely impacted the modernization and development of the PLAAF.Lumbering Forward: pg. 23
The prioritization of the missile and nuclear weapon programs also removed necessary resources from the aviation industry, which markedly declined through 1963. PLAAF as a whole stagnated, in metrics such as flight safety, pilot education, training, and strategic planning. However, flight hours recovered around 1965 as China started to support North Vietnam and became involved in the Vietnam War. Due to difficult conditions, the accident rates raised from 0.249 to 0.6 per 10,000 sorties in 1965.
Between January 1954 and 1971, 22 new divisions were created for a total of 50.
1970s to 1980s
In the 1970s, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) continued to damage the PLAAF readiness, leading to a devastating impact on pilot training, maintenance operations, and logistics. All PLAAF technical and maintenance schools were closed for a prolonged time, halting nearly every activity besides pilot flights. Moreover, the Chinese aviation industrial base was vandalized heavily due to the political turmoil, with many aircraft development programs stretched out, and the quality control in factories could not be sustained due to disruptions caused by Red Guards. The political fallout from the Cultural Revolution could still be felt by the leadership, and recovery only began in the 1980s.
PLAAF leadership recognized the importance of modern airpower and the existing weakness of the force in the late 1980s. After critical assessments, the 1985 reform led to force reduction, reorganization, and streamlining. Before the 1985 reorganization, the Air Force reportedly had four branches: air defense, ground attack, bombing, and independent air regiments. In peacetime the Air Force Directorate, under the supervision of the PLA General Staff Department, controlled the Air Force through headquarters located with, or in communication with, each of the seven military region headquarters. In war, control of the Air Force probably reverted to the regional commanders. In 1987 it was not clear how the reorganization and the incorporation of air support elements into the group armies affected air force organization. The largest Air Force organizational unit was the division, which consisted of 17,000 personnel in three regiments. A typical air defense regiment had three squadrons of three flights; each flight had three or four aircraft. The Air Force also had 220,000 air defense personnel who controlled about 100 surface-to-air missile sites and over 16,000 AA guns. In addition, it had a large number of early-warning, ground-control-intercept, and air-base radars operated by specialized troops organized into at least twenty-two independent regiments.