Hyped-Up Threat? Does China Exaggerate Its Own Air Force?

By Kenneth W. Allen and Brian Lafferty 

Ken Allen, Senior Warrior China Military Analyst

Allen is a Former Air Force Officer and Assistant Air Attache to US Embassy in Beijing, China

 What the PLA Air Force Says About Itself 

When examining China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF / 人民解放军空军), it is important to see what the PLAAF is saying to the international community about itself.

How does it present itself in terms of its capabilities and missions, and what does it choose to signal about its intentions? One of the PLAAF’s key channels for conveying its messages to an international audience is the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) China Military Online website. It is the only official English language military news website of the Chinese Armed Forces, and describes itself as “an important platform for building up the online international communication capacity of the Chinese military.” 

China Military Online provides news stories and photos about the PLAAF in its own section of the website, with content currently going back to 2018.3 These are the stories that the Chinese air force wants to share with the international community about who it is and what it does.4 This report offers a close examination of what the Chinese air force has been saying to the international community, describing the content of the 169 articles about the PLAAF that were published between January 2018 and August 2023 on the China Military Online website.5 While most reports on the PLAAF rely on multiple sources and tend to focus on a single topic, such as policy, strategy, or training during a certain period, this report focuses on a single source and what it is communicating.

Chinese Media Articles