China Integrates Air & Space Military Strategy

Ken Allen

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Introduction

This paper examines the “integrated air and space capability” 1 (kongtian yiti / component of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force’s (PLAAF) first ever service strategy, which was implemented to coincide with the PLAAF’s 10th Party Congress in May 2004 and represented a major milestone in China’s efforts to build a “Strategic Air Force.”2 Although the strategy has a second component – “coordinating offensive and defensive operations”– the paper will not discuss this in any detail. The PLAAF often combines the two components together in the phrases “building a strong air force based on integrating air and space capabilities, and coordinating offensive and defensive operations” and “creating a modern air force with integrated air and space capabilities and coordinate offensive and defensive operations." It also uses “to change from an aviation-type [air force] to an air and space-type [air force]." However, there is normally very little substance in the articles concerning what this means.4 In May 2004, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Military Commission (aka Central Military Commission / CMC) implemented the strategy as one component of the reforms to the PLA’s “Military Strategic Guidelines” that were first implemented in 1956 and is linked to the PLA’s “active defense” strategy that dates back to the 1930s.

Key Findings

Although the PLAAF received its first ever strategy, identified as “integrated air and space capabilities and coordinated offensive and defensive operations,” in 2004, it is not exactly clear what “integrated air and space capabilities” really means. The bottom line is that, as part of the goal of creating a “strategic air force”, the PLAAF may have initially wanted to “manage” all of the PLA’s space assets, including education and training, personnel, organizations, and equipment, that did not happen. Instead, the newly created PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) now manages all space assets previously managed by the former General Armament Department (GAD), while the PLAAF is able to use information gathered from space assets, such as intelligence information, to help make tactical decisions, and to be able to use space assets as communications relays between ground assets, such as command posts and command vehicles, and aircraft pilots, surface-to-air missile operators, and radar sites.