The Associated Press reported that on the 5th, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of founding of the Chinese Air Force planning and preparation, air show, the public display of its ability to raise a series of technical upgrades. Period, the Air Force will also use the old MiG fighter planes to replace the hundreds of advanced fighters to carry out parachute performance. Now, however, the PLA air force is still far behind its main rival the United States, only 20 percent of its aircraft to reach the level of Western troops.Reported that the University of California San Diego School of International Conflict and Collaboration Research Center, Senior Fellow, Chang Tai-ming (phonetic), Professor said that at present only 20% of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force fighter planes to reach the level of Western troops, and this ratio is twice as much as five years ago . Professor Zhang went on to say, although the People’s Liberation Army Air Force after two decades may be in the region of dominant position, but “on the hardware side, the Chinese Air Force has made tremendous progress, but there is still a long way to go.”
As the original focus on land-based, defensive capability, the PLA’s capability for long-range projection pursuit, the Air Force and the Navy to become China’s huge military’s primary beneficiaries. Tanker, AWACS and other support aircraft, the Air Force to develop an advanced Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets and Chinese-made F -10 range and effectiveness.
However, the report said, although the Air Force has more than 60 million troops and about 2000 aircraft, rated as Asia’s largest air force, but still falls far short of the U.S. Air Force – At present, the Air Force has more than 5500 aircraft, as well as 327.5 thousand active duty. In fact, the Chinese Air Force focused primarily on improving the ability to defend the Air Force such as the Chinese border, to prevent Taiwan formally declares independence, recovery of China’s claims of sovereignty over the islands and other mission-critical.
Reported that, in terms of quality point of view, or from the quantitative point of view, the Chinese Air Force far exceeds that of Taiwan. Moreover, its deployed opposite Taiwan, in 1300, long-range missiles capable of Taiwan’s airport and air defense devastating blow. However, in the formulation to cope with any outbreak of conflict in the Taiwan Strait area, they all must be taken into account the possibility of U.S. intervention, after all, the U.S. promised to protect Taiwan’s security in the region. When faced with this situation, the Chinese Air Force is likely to fail.
At present, the Chinese Air Force faces major problems is the lack of combat experience and training and tactics become increasingly obsolete. Air combat is the last to participate in the Vietnam War in 1979, but only played a largely symbolic role. In addition, the Air Force and the lack of coordination between the army and navy, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities are limited, and in recruiting and training pilots is also a problem in continuous.
Reported that the Chinese air force plane is not enough current in combat or humanitarian relief operations in the air for a large number of equipment and relief supplies, and a recent military exercise in the national delivery of the participating units are also responsible for business jets. It is noteworthy that the lack of air power has hampered the Chinese government’s humanitarian relief operations to play a greater role in the achievement of the objectives. For example, although in last year’s earthquake in Sichuan, China’s extensive participation of the Air Force rescue operations, but bad weather had forced them to the eventual elimination of an airdrop relief personnel and supplies several attempts.
Reported that the PLA Air Force faced another thorny issue is flight safety. People’s Liberation Army Air Force in recent years, the occurrence of a series of flights has made several senior Air Force officer was fired, but the Chinese side to these catastrophic events of confidentiality make it difficult to see the whole picture.
Reported that the ceremony held in the week, including the Air Force F -7 F -10 fighter aircraft and new air show appearances, as well as men and women carried out using a helicopter, parachute jump performance. This is the People’s Liberation Army this year the organization of the most large-scale exhibition, the PLA was only recently organized a parade, and there are hundreds of international maritime tanks and armored vehicles appeared in the National Day parade.
Although Beijing claims that these incidents represent only intended to enhance our national pride, and enhance the armed forces, self-confidence, but still within the rise of China’s military expansion abroad, the ultimate intentions of concern. In this regard, the Central Military Commission, member of the Air Force commander of the Xu-liang said that these activities have highlighted China’s “comprehensive national strength” and stressed that the Chinese have the “Air Force modernization of solid material and technical base.”
