China’s Air Force is Broken

The Chinese Air Force is among the most powerful on planet Earth.

Flying some 3,000 highly potent fighters and bombers, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force is the undisputed king of the skies across Asia with the technology, the pilots, and the payloads to deliver some serious hurt against any adversary that would dare cross its path.

On the numbers, it’s second only to the United States of America, while its highly advanced stealth jets and its growing list of next generation fighters grant China the right to claim that it’s America’s equal on the global stage.

So, it must be a point of some frustration inside the highest ranks of the CCP that China’s air force is also utterly broken.

Despite its capabilities on paper, despite the sheer volume of combat aircraft at its disposal, the reality of the Chinese Air Force isn’t nearly as formidable as it seems.

It’s hobballed by inefficiency and inexperience.

It’s unbalanced and it’s reliant on improven technology.

And it may not even be properly equipped for an invasion of Taiwan.

Put aside the hype, the breathless optimism, and the propaganda, and there’s a long list of reasons to suspect that in reality, China’s air force is little more than a paper tiger.

So, here’s what China has in its arsenal, and here’s where that arsenal falls apart.

In life, two things can be true at once.

And while we’re going to dive deep in today’s episode on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, we’ve got to begin by emphasizing that even though China’s air force is flawed, it certainly isn’t weak by any fair metric.

Both in the sheer size of its airwing and on the technological merits, China does boast the air force of a global superpower.

So before we get into the myriad problems with the force, let’s take stock of its overall military might.

Now, the backbone of Chinese military aviation and by far the most impressive mass-produced aircraft in China’s arsenal is the Changdu J20, the Mighty Dragon.

A stealth fighter that got its first taste of proper military service in 2017, the J20 has been rolling off Chinese production lines at stunning rates with somewhere above 300 copies of the jet in active service today.

A twin engine, all-weather air superiority fighter, the J20 is a stealth fighter, the second most common in the world behind America’s F-35.

It’s reportedly quite wellarmed with an impressive payload capacity, a substantial combat range, and advanced avionics on par with the best in the world.

Although it’s China’s premier stealth fighter, it’s no longer China’s only jet of this type.

Recently, Beijing has been preparing its Shenyang J35 for service with a handful of J35s believed to be in circulation at this time.

Once it goes into full-scale production, the J35 is expected to serve both as a land-based version and a catapult assisted carrier jet.

Externally, the J35 is quite similar to America’s F-35, and it’s expected to export out to Russia and Pakistan’s air forces at a minimum.

Backing up, the J-35 and the J10 are a whole suite of non-stalthy fourthgeneration fighter jets with most of those jets built around the core design of the Russian-made Sukal Su27.

First introduced to Soviet service back in 1985, the Su27 was initially intended as an air-to-air interceptor rivaling the American F-15 Eagle, although a number of variants have since gone into service.

Between the base SU27, the multi-roll SU30 improvement, the air superiority focused SU35, and three specialized Chinese-built variants, the J11 Ying Long, the carrier capable J15 Flying Shark, brilliant name, and the J16 Shiang Long.

All told, China is estimated to possess roughly a,000 copies of the jets.

That includes about 400 copies of the J16, specifically a variant fitted out with advanced avionics technology and equipped to carry the best Chinese-built munitions.

No matter the variant, aircraft of the SU27 line are known for their impressive top speed, their ability to operate at long range, and their ability to pack a punch on at least 10 external pylons.

Besides its roughly 1,000 SU27 derivatives, China flies over 600 copies of the indigenously designed and developed multiroll fighter, the J10 Vigorous Dragon.

Similar to the American F-16 or the European Euro Fighter, the J10 is a single engine fighter meant to balance air-to-air combat with strike capability as a sort of aerial omni tool of destruction.

The latest edition of the aircraft, the J10C variant, is known to feature particularly impressive onboard avionics and software technology, placing it on par with the best non-stalth aircraft in service with any world nation.

Along with the nation’s wide variety of fighter aircraft, China’s one of the few modern air forces on the planet to fly dedicated strategic bombers.

That portion of China’s arsenal consists of well over 200 copies of the H6, a bomber featuring a combat range of 3,500 km and a weapons bay capable of carrying all manner of guided bombs and large missiles.

Although the H6 is based on the old Soviet Tu16, an aircraft that first flew in 1952 and was retired in Russia in the early 2000s.

Today’s H6 aircraft substantially more advanced than their dated airframes would suggest.

In particular, China flies at least 120 of its H6K and H6M variants, refitted with more advanced engines, a modern flight deck, and the requisite features to carry heavy air launch ballistic missiles similar to the most modernized copies of America’s B-52.

Alongside the H6, China fields over 200 copies of the JH7, which is a lighter but still relatively potent fighter bomber.

Rounding out his combat arsenal, a range of unmanned drones, including both strike drones similar to the Americanmade Predator, a Reaper, and a second class of drones that’s a bit more unique.

Refititted Cold War era jet fighters meant to provide expendable fighter jet swarms and decoys during a potential invasion of Taiwan.

Backing up his ground forces, China flies several hundred attack helicopters in two models, the Zed 19 and the Z10, as well as a range of anti-ubmarine helicopters, each available only in small numbers.

Just as important as China’s combat aircraft are its support aircraft, gathered from a combination of its air force, its naval airwing, and the aviation branch of its ground forces.

For its airborne, early warning and control aircraft capable of providing situational awareness in battle across great distances, China flies a small handful of longrange KJ2000s, soon to be joined by the long-awaited upgrades, the KJ 30000.

Backing them up are about 70 propeller powered early warning aircraft, the KJ200 and the KJ500, plus a few different types of naval helicopter.

For electronic warfare, China flies about 20 propeller-powered aircraft, plus a dozen specially refitted copies of one of its Su27 derivatives, the J16, outfitted for radar jamming in roughly the same way as America’s Growler aircraft.

China’s working to expand its fleet of air-to-air refuelers currently comprising about 25 jets across several different models while the nation fulfills its strategic airlift requirements by leaning on about 70 jet powered heavy lift aircraft split between the Soviet era IL76 and the Chinesebuilt Y20.

China also flies about 120 tactical airlifters.

And if you’re really counting everything that they’ve got, they also fly about 100 Soviet era biplanes, which were first developed all the way back in the 1940s, coming up at 100 years ago.

Altogether, China flies well past 3,000 fixed wing and rotary combat aircraft, and its production lines are spitting out more advanced combat jets week over week.

Not only that, but over the course of the past year, China has proved that its research and design capabilities are quite robust.

I mean so robust in fact that the nation appears to have numerous experimental combat aircraft either in testing or on the verge of production.

The most impressive among these is an aircraft provisionally referred to as the J36, a threeengine tailless aircraft that was first spotted over China in December of 2024.

Although it hasn’t been formally acknowledged by Beijing, it’s believed to be a prototype sixth generation fighter.

a designation that if true would mean China has a shot at being the first nation to put a sixth gen aircraft into mainline service.

China’s also known to be flying at least two advanced prototypes of unclear nature, possibly piloted, possibly drone, as oh well as a stealth bomber known as the H20, which may or may not have been an aircraft spotted flying at high altitudes by civilian photographers on the ground in China just this year.

China’s also well on its way to building a whole range of collaborative combat aircraft.

more simply referred to as drone wingmen.

Take a step back, take a long open-minded look at the aerial warfighting tools that we just laid out, and we’d expect the conclusion is rather obvious.

China’s air force and its broader military capabilities are really rather impressive.

The Chinese Air Force is practically overrun with shiny new kit and it’s able to tick just about every box that a modern air force could possibly ask for.

But in order to find the first glaring issue with China’s air force, we don’t even have to look under the hood.

Although to be clear, we will absolutely be doing that as well.

Instead, the first problem we have to emphasize is rooted entirely in the fact of China’s new sparkly hardware.

Because everything in China’s air force, from its aircraft to its pilots to its battle tactics and strategy are unblenmished.

They’re fresh out of the box.

And the last time that the People’s Republic of China fought a war, the world was a very different place.

John Lennon, Princess Diana, Richard Nixon, and Jackie Anassis were all alive and well, and the band Queen had only just announced that they will in fact rock you.

And the Islamic Republic of Iran was not years, not months, but just days old.

It was, of course, 1979 when China and Vietnam fought a nearly four-week exchange known as the Sinovietnamese war.

Western casualty counts from the war count somewhere between 50 and 60,000 people killed.

But for our purposes, it matters less what the outcome of the fighting was and more about what the People’s Liberation Army was flying.

In fact, China wasn’t flying anything during that combat.

At least not by way of combat air support for its ground troops.

And the people who were a part of China’s air force back then have long since aged out of service.

In fact, many of them have now died.

Since that time, China has never fought an air war.

Not against a peer adversary, not against a nearpeer adversary, and not even against an adversary that would have been cleanly outmatched in the sky.

Not a single one of China’s fighter pilots is known to have ever tasted combat.

And not a single one of the Chinese Air Force’s high commanders is known to have ever commanded a modern air force in battle.

Of course, we say that China’s personnel are known to have taken part in such things because there’s always a bit of a gray area where experience is concerned.

Certainly, we’re not going to hold firm and insist that not a single Chinese pilot was quietly stripped of their uniform and sent to fly Russian Sukcoy fighters as part of the war in Ukraine or the prior conflict in the Dawnbass.

But even if a select few pilots have been able to get a taste of battle, the vast majority of China’s pilots and its military leaders have had no such opportunity.

They’ve been trained via digital simulations, via real life exercises, and via intensive practical and theoretical instruction.

But none have ever officially taken part in an air war of any kind.

They haven’t even carried out an air strike of the kind that’s become so ubiquitous through the global war on terror and all manner of other counterinsurgent operations.

It’s impossible to quantify just how much experience matters in modern warf fighting environments.

But the difference between experienced militaries that are accustomed to the rigors of combat and militaries that have never even gotten a taste is absolutely night and day.

That’s especially true in aerial combat where the combination of incoming enemy fire, constantly shifting priorities and battlefield conditions, and quite possibly even enemy aircraft to contend with all take the difficult challenge of flying and make it really rather impossible.

Even for experienced combat veterans, the cockpit is a real challenge.

And in an environment where the pressure is so high, pilots getting their first taste of combat are prone to lapses in judgment, miscalculations, oversightes, or just outright mistakes that in an academic sense they already know how to avoid.

For air forces that can add new pilots to their squadrons gradually and expose them to combat conditions alongside seasoned veterans, that’s a problem that can be overcome with experienced pilots helping to guide, coordinate, and if necessary, protect the lives of newer ones.

But when the entire squadron is flying into battle for the first time all at the same time against a more experienced peer or nearer adversary, that’s going to be a major problem.

China’s pilots simply don’t have the crutch of more experienced wingmen to help them along.

And while the historical record is mixed when it comes to relatively inexperienced war fighters rising to meet the moment, it’s in the cockpit that inexperienced troops face the greatest barrier to success.

Unlike a platoon or a company of soldiers on the ground, fighter pilots have practically zero margin for error.

A soldier on the ground, if the unit comes under fire, can scramble for cover and start shooting back.

But a combat aviator by default must make every split-second decision while performing the aerial equivalent of maneuvering a high performance car down a bustling city avenue at 200 km an hour.

At times, they’ve got to react to incoming threats from multiple vectors at once with little if any ability to actually see the threat or their own comrades during intense maneuvers.

all while trying to maintain situational awareness and carry out their own objectives.

The same could be said about say air-to-air refueling crews trying to carry out that complex task under adverse circumstances for the first time or the crews of airborne early warning craft who for the first time in their lives have to keep battlefield awareness while watching real aircraft and real lives wink out on their screens.

discussing the entire military’s capabilities.

Even the official newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army has called out this problem directly, referring to it as quote peace disease.

But nowhere does the rot and atrophy of peace disease matter more than it does for China’s air force.

And it’s not as if the first taste of combat that Chinese pilots receive will be a carefully measured dose that’s intended to inoculate them and make them stronger.

More than likely, the first large-scale war that China fights in the 21st century will be over the island of Taiwan, where the Chinese Air Force will be going head-to-head with far more experienced pilots from the United States, flying their own highly sophisticated stealth jets.

Although it’s been a while since American pilots were dogf fighting with enemy aircraft, many of the nation’s pilots have at least flown into active combat zones, which is far more than can be said for their Chinese adversaries.

America’s history of recent aerial engagements also allows it to refine its best practices, accommodate the proven strengths and limitations of its aircraft, and use data to guide its future decision-making.

All luxuries that China just doesn’t have.

And just as China’s pilots have no real familiarity with the rigors of battle, their aircraft are entirely unproven in combat.

There are limited exceptions here for Chinese-made aircraft in service with other militaries around the world, and we’ll talk through those exceptions shortly.

that even those aren’t aircraft in service with the Chinese Air Force.

They’re just aircraft that China designed and then shipped off.

The individual flying aircraft copies in China’s arsenal have never been put to the test in combat conditions on China’s behalf.

And some of the most important have never been tested at all.

When we described the Stealthy J20, for example, as the backbone of China’s combat airfleet, that was a positive in some ways.

After all, it’s a fifth generation fighter produced in such high numbers that it could be readily accessible at scale in times of war.

But it’s also a platform that has never fired its missiles in anger.

On paper, it’s able to conceal itself from even sophisticated enemy defenses, perform brilliantly in close-range aerial dog fights, and be able to turn around rapidly from mission to mission without falling apart under strain.

But if the J20 is taken into battle and even one of those capabilities proves absent, then the backbone of China’s modern military will have proven to be no backbone at all.

And that same problem extends to the entirety of the Chinese Air Force.

China is pretty sure that its H20 bombers and its crew could fly to a target, unleash their payload, and come home safely.

But China doesn’t actually know that because it’s never been done.

The nation’s strategic airlift crews should be able to carry out intense insertion and extraction missions on short runways and with limited time to work.

But the air crews have never tried it and their aircraft have never been asked to perform under that strain with the added risk of incoming fire.

Even the combat aircraft that have got on a bit of combat action with other nations like the J10C have yet to operate in large numbers.

For any of China’s aircraft, aerodynamic challenges, production line errors, unknown weak spots and vulnerabilities, or underperforming technology could all be lurking, just waiting for the opportunity to bite China’s pilots and commanders in the ass.

And as major a factor as experience undoubtedly is, China’s lack of familiarity with real aerial combat, that’s only the start.

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Let’s make a radical assumption right now.

Despite a complete lack of real world experience for themselves, the people who taught them and the people who taught the people who taught them, China’s military aviators are the very best in the world.

Now, with that assumption in mind, let’s ask another question.

How much does that aviation skill actually matter if every time they try to fly their aircraft lose power and come crashing to the ground? I mean, we’re exaggerating, of course.

Lucky for China’s pilots, it appears that at the very least, their planes are pretty good at staying in the sky.

But all the operational expertise in the world counts for nothing if the technology can’t keep up.

And for China’s war plananes, this problem goes much deeper than the simple fact that they’re untested in combat.

Certainly, there are some problems that can only be exposed in the crucible of war.

But others are easy to spot, even in peace time.

And in China’s case, those problems are everywhere.

even afflicting the fighter jet that Beijing intends to rely on above all else.

The most glaring problem for the J20 stealth fighter is a problem for quite a few of China’s combat jets, its engines.

Despite the J20 being intended as a high performance fighter, China’s engine designers haven’t been able to keep up with the intended engine for the J20, the WS-15, still not ready two decades after it was first ignited on the test bed.

The engine is reportedly prone to overheating.

Its heat signatures are unsty, and it consumes so much fuel that it cuts into the J20’s intended combat range.

At present, it’s still not clear that the engine is being integrated into new J20 models as a matter of course.

Further, supply chain issues have become yet another barrier in getting the engine ready.

Even when it is ready to go, China will have to spend years taking flyable J20s out of service and upgrading them, unless it wants to leave its existing J20 fleet hamstrung by an inferior power plant.

In the meantime, China relies on a lesser engine called the WS10, despite the fact that it’s known for frequently overheating, intermittently stalling, and having no ability to fly at sustained supersonic speeds or super cruise without the use of afterburners.

Beyond its perpetual engine trouble, the J20 has frequently had its stealthy attributes called into question.

While years of debate about its potentially compromising front windlets or cannards have been mostly settled with the conclusion that the cannards aren’t that big of a deal, the aircraft’s manufacturing quality seems to leave gaps in the paneling on some aircraft that could make it far more visible on radar.

It’s also believed to only be a fraction as stealthy when viewed from the rear or the side, especially with hot burning engines that make it a prime target for infrared detection measures.

Its internal weapons bays are quite small compared to American F-35s, severely limiting the payload that it can carry while remaining stealthy.

And at present, it’s not even able to carry any bombs within that bay.

It’s known to have some pretty substantial maintenance requirements that minimize its flight time.

And according to a range of Western experts, it’s at least partially reliant on stolen technology from the US and Russia.

In practical terms, that last point wouldn’t really matter except for the fact that combining various stolen technologies plus indigenous design elements while potentially not fully understanding the stolen tech that’s being integrated is a recipe for weird and unpredictable problems to arise when they’re least expected.

Moving on from the J20, numerous Chinese combat jets are thought to suffer from the same compromising engine issues.

China’s J10C, the most potent non-stalth aircraft in its airfleet, is fitted with the unreliable WS10, an engine that’s known to need frequent maintenance and even to be swapped out occasionally, which really isn’t what you’d want in a single engine fighter.

China is developing new generation engines to power its H6 bomber fleet, but will need to take those bombers offline when the new engine, the WS18, becomes available.

Even the mysterious jet that’s been provisionally referred to as the J36, seems to suffer from underpowered engines.

It’s a trijet design with not one, not two, but three engines set close together.

But while that setup might produce some cool contrails, it really isn’t what you want in an advanced fighter.

Instead, it’s likely a byproduct of the aircraft’s heavy long range design, simply carrying too much mass for just two of China’s available fighter jet engines to be able to move it properly.

Then there’s China’s heavy reliance on aircraft of the SU27 line as its primary workhorse.

While more and better J20s are still coming online, not only are those aircraft also brought low by their engine troubles, particularly the otherwise advanced Shenyang J16, but they appear to have far lower range in practice than what’s advertised in China’s official materials.

China’s J11s are largely unable to receive air-to-air refueling, while the more advanced J16 lacks thrust vectoring engine nozzles and the ability to fly at super cruise.

Not only that, but the entire SU27 basis for these jets is outdated.

With the SU27 and its many derivatives having shown up in enough wartime environments and engaged in enough highly visible combat operations that China’s adversaries almost certainly understand the aircraft’s inherent vulnerabilities, China’s supply chain for its SU27 derivatives isn’t healthy either.

With Beijing still partially reliant on Russia to keep these jets in the sky as alternatives become available, China has been quite enthusiastic in getting its J11s, J16s, and Russian-made Sukoy jets out of service, as well as the carrier capable J15s that the Chinese Navy relies on to stock its aircraft carriers.

And no takedown of the Chinese Air Force would be complete without circling back to the H6 bomber.

Although the H6 is big, relatively fast, and has been updated by China over time, it comes with quite a few drawbacks, not least the fact that many of China’s copies are outdated and haven’t been brought up to modern standard.

Only about 120 of the jets at most are thought to be ready to fly into active combat, and even that’s possibly an optimistic figure.

Based on a design that entered service with the Soviets in 1952, the H6’s payload capacity is poultry by modern standards, with the standard variant in the Chinese Air Force today, the H6K, only capable of carrying a payload of about 15 tons.

If that sounds impressive, then we’ve got to give a bit of context here.

That’s almost exactly the same payload as America’s F15EX, an aircraft that can be flown by a single pilot, can hit a top speed of nearly triple that of the H6, and can keep itself far safer through a combination of maneuverability and onboard defenses.

America’s upgraded B-52H can carry well past double what the H6 can at the same high speeds and a far greater range.

Not only that, but the B-52 can work in tandem with the B1 and B2, while Russia’s similarly elderly TU95 bombers can work alongside the TU22 and the TU160.

China’s H6 is completely on its own, save for a fighter escort or the much smaller, less equipped JH7.

It’s utterly unsty and wouldn’t be survivable in modern aerial engagements where Chinese fighters haven’t neutralized enemy air defenses and adversary aircraft using standoff weaponry that can launch very far away from aerial battlefields.

If recent world affairs are any indication, then there should be at least one Chinese combat aircraft that’s immune from criticism, and that would be the J10C.

An aircraft that, according to Pakistan, shot down several French-made Raphael jets in combat with India just a few short months ago.

But even the J10C has its problems, and not just because of the issues with its single unreliable WS10 engine.

The J10C’s avionics are good in some regards, but well below modern standards in others.

It’s got relatively light payload and a relatively short range, even before adjusting for its engines high rates of fuel consumption.

And even the J10C’s accomplishments in Pakistan have been called into question despite the evidence seeming to support the idea that the J10C did take down French Rafals.

Instead, that combat victory seems to have had more to do with India misunderstanding the range of the missiles the Pakistan’s J10C’s were firing according to both Indian and Pakistani sources speaking to the global press.

That is to say, India’s pilots believed that they were safe from the missiles being launched in their direction because apparently the range of the Chinese-made PL-15 missiles the Pakistan used were a good deal longer than China had advertised.

To be clear, that is a positive mark for China’s missiles.

Also an important asset to consider uh when evaluating the country’s air force.

But assuming that that version of events is accurate, it would be premature to say that the J10C outperformed advanced Western fighters or even engaged in a true contest with them at all.

Without that, the J10C is just as unproven as the J20 or any of China’s other modern warplanes.

So, let’s play devil’s advocate one more time.

We’ll keep the assumption that we mentioned before that even despite the fact that China’s military aviators are completely unproven, they’ve nonetheless managed to become the absolute best in the world.

And we’ll even add another assumption that all of the problems with China’s military aircraft that we just explained in detail are actually nothing to worry about.

And the J20, the J10C, and H6, and everything else that China’s flying are just as awesome as Beijing would have us believe.

Even in a scenario where China does have the pilots and the aircraft it needs, there’s still more reason to be concerned.

For a globally empowered air force, it’s not enough to just have a good arsenal.

You’ve got to be able to unify that arsenal into a functional air force.

And here, yet again, there’s reason to believe that China isn’t quite so formidable as it seems.

The biggest problem here comes down to force design.

which aircraft China has chosen to procure with their respective strengths and weaknesses in order to accomplish the wartime tasks that China believes to be most important.

After all, no two air forces are exactly alike.

Brazil and Italy, for example, command relatively the same economic power to fuel their respective militaries.

But Brazil, with no real geopolitical adversaries, but a massive Amazon to patrol, has invested mostly in long range light attack propeller planes to engage in remote patrols.

With just three dozen modern fighter jets at the nation’s disposal once all of its orders come in, Italy, by contrast, is a relatively powerful member of the NATO alliance, building a fleet that’ll eventually include almost 100 F-35s and almost 100 Euro fighter typhoons with none of the propellerpowered patrol aircraft that Brazil so coverts.

By all our indicators, China wants to build an air force that prioritizes long range, high-tech air superiority missions.

While its biggest investment, the J20, can serve in a strike role, it’s at its absolute best when bringing down enemy aircraft.

And China has already built well over 300 of these things.

Its strike fighters and strategic bobbers are all described at least publicly as having combat ranges of multiple thousands of kilometers despite the high probability that their actual combat ranges are much less because of the engine troubles we just described.

China’s most recently upgraded bombers are meant to launch longrange cruise missiles while its upcoming line of J35 stealth jets are meant to operate far a field on aircraft carriers before adding their own substantial combat range to the mix.

If China were to design a hypothetical war where its own combat arsenal was best suited to win, then that would most likely be a war against an adversary at least a thousand km out where its advanced stealth aircraft could dismantle enemy defenses in short order, clearing the way for a second wave of strike aircraft to devastate whatever remains.

But if that’s correct, then the composition of the rest of China’s air force just doesn’t make very much sense.

China places a disproportionately heavy emphasis on designing and procuring combat aircraft to the point that its fleet of non-combat and support aircraft looks practically anemic.

And while that might not be as big of a problem for a different style of air force with a different practical focus, it’s a major issue for an air force like China.

Right now, Beijing has barely 25 air-to-air refueling tankers in operation, supporting a combined Air Force and naval airwing of over 3,000 combat aircraft, a ratio of 120 to1.

By comparison, the US Air Force flies some 500 air-to-air refuelers without even accounting for other branches of the military against about 2,000 combat aircraft, roughly a 4:1 ratio, and it still believes itself to be in an air-to-air refueling crisis.

With so few refuelers available, China lacks the means to keep anything larger than a handful of fighter aircraft in the skies for extended periods on a combat mission.

Meaning that any large operation will have to depend on whatever fuel China’s fighters can carry by themselves.

Even for non-stalthy aircraft, relying on external fuel tanks diminishes the ability to carry payloads or munitions.

While if an aircraft like the J20 wants to remain stealthy, then external fuel tanks aren’t even an option.

And while this might be an acceptable situation for China, in an offensive against a nearby adversary like Taiwan, where it might expect a single all-out strike to neutralize its enemy in a matter of hours, even that sort of operation risks quietly getting out of hand if resistance is greater than expected, and China has to recall its fighters for a drawn out refueling process.

Once operations become complex, a nation like China is really going to want air-to-air refuelers, and it barely has any.

The same can be said for China’s airborne early warning and control aircraft charged with maintaining broad situational awareness across a battlefield.

China has a few different types of AWNC planes, but only one, the KJ2000, is equipped to provide 360° awareness over a massive battle space for extended periods.

And China’s got fewer than half a dozen of them.

unstalthy, hard to protect from long-range weapons, and reliant on large, highly specialized air crews.

These are aircraft that are immensely hard to replace once they’re lost.

Just ask Russia, where Moscow’s fleet of similarly equipped A50s has been ravaged by Ukraine over the course of 3 and 1/2 years of war.

China expects to add a new AWNC plane to its arsenal soon, the KJ 30000.

But only one of the aircraft is believed to have been completed thus far, and China’s ability to produce more seems to be starkly limited.

When it comes to electronic warfare aircraft, China doesn’t do much better, reliant on older, mostly propeller-driven aircraft in small numbers.

And when it comes to strategic airlift, China practically falls apart.

Between its Soviet-made IL76 and indigenous Y20, China has only about 70 strategic airlifters at its disposal at any given time, plus about 60 4engine turborop aircraft that could be charitably described as tactical airlifters.

Compare that to the United States Air Force again, without even accounting for the separate infantry of the Navy or Marines, and it isn’t a close contest.

The US flies about 250 massive strategic airlifters and a similar number of proven tactical airlifters which it’s proven that it can deploy at long range for sustained complex logistical operations.

A skill set that China hasn’t even begun to show that it can rival.

With so few strategic airlifters at its disposal, China lacks options when considering large-scale military operations abroad.

If it wanted to conduct operations against, let’s say, Taiwan, then even if it could quickly secure Taiwanese airspace, it would have to either wait for a fleet of slow, vulnerable warships to arrive, fing troops and hardware, or drip feed handfuls of Chinese paratroopers or small landing forces using the airlift as it has.

Not to mention, if China wants to actually station any of its own aircraft on captured airfields in a place like Taiwan, then it’ll lack the ability to provide logistical support for that operation by air.

That means no rapid replenishment of munitions, no way to quickly send replacement parts if aircraft are damaged, and no way to quickly reinforce and fortify airfields in contested areas.

Finally, even China’s combat air fleet is underequipped for these sorts of operations.

Most of China’s fighter aircraft as well as his H6 bombers carry relatively small payloads compared to similar aircraft in the arsenals of other nations.

And its most fighter, the J20, is among the most underwhelming in that regard.

Like we mentioned earlier, the J20 can’t even carry bombs, severely limiting its options in clearing out enemy air defenses and adversary fighters.

Nor could China rely on the idea that it could make up for small payloads on individual aircraft by flying its aircraft in massive volumes.

Even if China were completely focused on a single military operation, like an invasion of Taiwan, it would still have to distribute most of its combat aircraft across the nation.

A fair portion will be grounded at any given time, as is the case with any modern air force, while others will have to remain in position for both routine territorial defense and to conduct defensive operations in order to deal with potential counterattacks.

Using Taiwan as an example, any Chinese invasion will almost certainly result in incredible numbers of drones and missiles flying back toward the Chinese mainland.

And China will need planes in the air to deal with that.

Account for all the aircraft that have to be kept in reserve for other duties, and China is left with a much smaller invasion force, which will then have to split into multiple waves to avoid a scenario in which it establishes air superiority over Taiwan and then just leaves the area.

Those first few waves of an aerial invasion force would be made up mostly of stealth aircraft carrying small payloads and only able to spend so much time flying around and hunting for targets before they get back to the mainland.

After all, China doesn’t have the air-to-air refuelers to keep them flying.

In that scenario, a first wave of maybe a 100 stealthy J20s have to try and neutralize well over 250 Taiwanese fighter jets, dozens of air defense batteries, and hundreds of missile launchers.

All before the first waves of American F-35s, F-22s, or F-15 EXs arrive from Kadina Air Base in Okinawa.

Assume anything less than perfect efficiency, and that aerial invasion of Taiwan gets very messy very quickly.

Worst of all, the imbalances that we’ve described in China’s air force just result in worse and worse problems as China is made to deal with adversaries located further and further away from its own mainland.

The Taiwan Strait is only about 180 km wide on average, where it’s at least somewhat reasonable for Chinese military planners to assume that they can rely on mainland military bases to sustain an invasion.

Operations further out across the Pacific against the Philippines, against Japan, against the outlying Pacific Islands or elsewhere would be substantially more difficult for China to sustain.

And in a world where the nations of the Indoacific respond as expected to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, China will have a much tougher time securing control over its target if it can’t sustain an aerial perimeter to keep American, Japanese, South Korean, Australian, and other war plananes from getting close.

With so few air-to-air refuelers and so few strategic airlifted to support operations from the artificial island airfields that China has built, China will be hardpressed to make any aerial perimeter a reality.

And if it can’t keep a perimeter, then any Chinese invasion of Taiwan will have to proceed in hotly contested airspace.

Moving away from flaws in the substance and the style of China’s air force, we find our way to a much larger set of complicating factors that are moving behind the scenes to make their work that much more difficult.

In China, even more so than in most world nations, the military and the world of party politics are deeply interconnected.

And where instruments of China state bureaucracy wield power, corruption’s never far away.

>> >> Graft, self-deing, and outright theft estate resources are problems all up and down the Chinese military.

And although the full extent of the problem is unknown to the outside world, occasional glimpses at the problem can paint a devastating picture.

Take the example of corruption inside China’s rocket force.

When starting in 2023, Beijing cracked down on massive graft that led to all sorts of malfunctioning and compromised equipment, including the regular replacement of missile fuel with water in order to hide fuel theft.

Beyond that scandal, the two men who most recently led China’s Ministry of National Defense were both removed during anti-corruption purges, with the current defense minister, Dong Jung, having reportedly been subjected to investigations of his own.

She’s most recent purge has seen several major defense leaders in China be removed from their posts, including the two generals in charge of the rocket force and a number of high-profile officials involved with the development of new technologies.

Notably, she’s anti-corruption pushes within the military have swept up numerous figures who were widely understood to be she loyalists, suggesting either some sort of brewing internal revolt within she’s own faction, or more likely the existence of corruption issues so endemic that they’ve necessitated the removal of his own allies.

While the specifics of corruption within the Chinese air force, they’re difficult to pin down, recent action by Beijing seems to indicate that there are plenty of problems below the surface.

Take the man who led the entire military branch before the current commander Chang Dingqi who took the reigns in 2021.

Before Chang stepped up, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force was under the command of Ding Li Hang who spent a bit over 4 years in charge.

But 2 years after his unexplained >> >> ouster, Ding was swept up in anti-corruption crackdowns.

Coming from the top of Beijing’s hierarchy, he was stripped of the prestigious positions he had enjoyed after his time in the military came to an end early this year.

China’s most important military aircraft manufacturer watched two of its highest executives be removed from their posts.

While it’s unheard of for Beijing to directly disclose what sort of corruption goes on inside its military, the country’s air force in particular is a juicy target for high-ranking officials looking to make some money.

Whether it’s by skimming off lucrative procurement contracts, selling off the specially machined components required to build and maintain aircraft, or even selling military-industrial secrets to other nations, there is no shortage of opportunity in the Chinese air force for an enterprising grifter.

But in China’s military, corruption goes well beyond simple graft by generals or state defense companies.

In some ways, corruption within the system is a deliberate and careful creation by China’s own leaders, not just to enrich themselves, but to ensure that the military doesn’t become a threat to the regime itself.

China’s ruling elites have taken great care to shut down potential challenges coming from every conceivable angle.

Ordinary people can’t vote for a different leader or rally to force a political change.

Potential opposition leaders can’t organize into independent political parties.

Wealthy elites have been reminded repeatedly that their fortunes exist at the pleasure of Beijing.

and members of China’s own hierarchy of leadership are kept so busy fighting each other that they’ve got little hope of finding an opportunity to challenge the political powerhouses above their station.

The Chinese military, by contrast, has been rigorously couproved over the course of generations.

Promotions are made largely on the basis of loyalty instead of merit.

Internal leadership structures are made intentionally bureaucratic and inefficient, and a very small number of trusted commanders are granted the vast majority of command and control authority.

That’s especially true for the Chinese Air Force, where as little as just a single maverick bomber crew, under the right circumstances, could decapitate China’s political leadership in a way that a rogue band of soldiers or junior officers would have no hope of achieving.

And unfortunately for the Chinese military, couproofing comes at the expense of military effectiveness on the battlefield.

Beijing’s declined the opportunity to promote its own best and brightest in favor of promoting alternatives who won’t rock the boat.

It’s ensured that the decisions of its military commanders have to be run through political commissars who often lack military experience or even basic familiarity with the way the military works.

In peace time, Chinese military commanders have had to wait for committee approval to perform tasks so fundamental as bringing submarines to the water’s surface.

The nation’s military exercises typically designed to deliver a sense of grandiosity for party elites rather than to actually hone the advanced skills of the troops participating.

and advertised efforts to reform the system have turned out to be little more than performance art.

China cannot simply flip a switch in times of war and expect that bureaucracy, that inefficiency, and the consequences of an intentional corruption of its military will simply go away.

And for the nation’s air force, where realworld combat operations will require realtime coordination of assets, efficient decision-making, and tactical prowess from the leadership, that internal corruption may prove even more damaging than it will be for everybody else.

Combine all the many, many problems of the Chinese Air Force, from a complete lack of experience to a strange and discordant force design to underpowered and underwhelming technology to self-enriching and state sponsored corruption.

And it ain’t a pretty picture, is it? To be clear now, we here at Warfronts don’t have some secret window into the Chinese military.

We can only draw on external observations, the analysis of experts, and the occasional bits of news that filter outward from the Middle Kingdom.

But if indeed China’s air force is hobbled by each of the problems that we have laid out all at once, then China’s ability to fight a 21st century war against a modern adversary should rightfully be in doubt.

The PLAAF doesn’t make sense as a unified force, except in the narrowest of circumstances.

Its leaders don’t have evidence to support the idea that their inexperienced air crews or their combat aircraft can handle the rigor of battle.

for China to look at this air force and believe it capable of destroying a lesser adversary similar to the US-led air assault on Iraq in 1991, then sure, perhaps we could buy that.

But for China to take this air force and trust it to handle a war against Taiwan and thus a war against the US and its Indopacific allies, it just doesn’t appear to be a smart bet.

There is, however, another option to speak softly and carry a really, really big stig.

You see, when China’s air force gets itself into trouble, it’s because China’s adversaries are reading the fine print.

China proudly touts its hundreds of J20 stealth fighters, and that’s really impressive, as long as you don’t go searching for articles about the J20’s engines or the complications of its stealth profile.

China has well over a 100 strategic bombers at its disposal.

And that’s really impressive as long as you don’t look too closely at the stat sheet.

China, the nation that’s built itself into the rising superpower of this century, has one of the biggest and most technologically sophisticated air forces in the world.

And that statement by itself is undeniable.

It just happens that one of the world’s biggest and most technically sophisticated air forces comes with a few notable drawbacks.

But whether or not that’s a problem for China, that depends on how Beijing would answer the following question.

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