Abstract
The Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is undergoing a transformation into a modern air force, shifting from a primarily homeland air defense force to one with both offensive and defensive capabilities. It is steadily retiring aging aircraft and replacing obsolete and Russian-built platforms with domestically produced “fourth-generation-plus” and fifth-generation fighters, thereby enhancing its overall combat power. The PLAAF now possesses the ability to compete with neighboring countries for air superiority along the First Island Chain and to penetrate that chain to project long-range strike weapons. This development has a major impact on regional security and poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s air defense.
The PLAAF’s strategic transformation is driven by both external and internal factors. External drivers include changes in the international security environment and rising tensions in U.S.–China relations, which have prompted a strategic shift toward the Western Pacific. Internal drivers stem from military reforms that institutionalized the principle of “theater commands focusing on combat operations, services focusing on force development,” elevating the status of the Air Force and removing institutional barriers that had previously constrained its development, thereby enabling significant improvements in air combat capability.
The PLAAF has continued to conduct airspace intrusions around Taiwan and to carry out large-scale exercises. Compared with the past, these exercises have increased in scale, number of aircraft and vessels involved, and diversity of platforms employed. This demonstrates a growing capability to conduct long-range, large-area, cross-service, and cross-theater complex military operations. Training activities increasingly emphasize long-range deployment and combat, integrating different types of combat aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, airborne command and control aircraft, and electronic warfare platforms, and in some cases incorporating aerial refueling aircraft to extend operational reach. Through such exercises, the PLAAF’s joint command and operational capabilities are significantly enhanced, increasing the level of threat to Taiwan.
Taiwan should comprehensively review its existing air defense capabilities, including surveillance and early-warning radars as well as air-to-air and ground-based air defense weapons, to determine whether they are sufficient to counter the PLAAF’s emerging threats. Taiwan should also develop new technologies and tactics to address stealth aircraft and unmanned systems employed by the PLA. In addition to continuing efforts to acquire fifth-generation fighter aircraft from the United States, Taiwan should advance the development of an indigenous next-generation fighter to replace the Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF). Furthermore, the development of stealth-capable unmanned aerial vehicles is necessary to help reverse the growing imbalance in air defense across the Taiwan Strait.