CIAO DATE: 06/02

People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF): Shifting Airpower Balance and Challenges to India's Security

China is India's largest and most important neighbor, and despite recent efforts at improving relations between the two countries, the over half-century-old border dispute remains unresolved. China is an expansionist power trying to enhance the security of its peripheral areas.1 It is important to note that in the recent past, China has resolved its border disputes with almost all its neighbors except India. Relations between the two countries have no doubt improved since 1988, when then-Indian prime minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi, visited Beijing, and since the conclusion of 1993 and 1996 agreements on maintenance of peace and tranquility on the borders, but the progress so far has been slow. China continues to claim some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory in the northeast while it illegally occupies some 23,000 square kilometers of Aksai Chin in the north of India.

While some scholars have asserted "China considers the 1962 border conflict an unfortunate event in history and will never allow such an event to occur again," the memories of the 1962 Chinese invasion of India still rankle in Indian minds. In some ways India has yet to get over the trauma of 1962. India has long accepted the status of Tibet as part of China, but China has not reciprocated by accepting the special relationship that India has with Nepal or the status of Bhutan, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh, the latter two being states of the Indian Union. In retrospect it can be argued that the 1962 border war was the result of gross misunderstanding and miscalculations on both sides. Yet, "To many Indians, the confidencebuilding measures that have been introduced since 1976 seem to have been built on a history of unilateral Indian concessions. In 1979 Foreign Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee attempted to normalize relations with China and paid a visit to Beijing. China rebuffed him by opening a military campaign against Vietnam, a close Indian ally, during his visit."

The Chinese have sold huge quantities of arms and combat aircraft to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Bangladesh, which had barely a squadron of F-86 Sabers when it was part of Pakistan, now possesses some 88 combat aircraft, all of them of Chinese origin except six MiG-29s it purchased from Russia. Bangladesh surely faces no threat from its neighbors. China has also sold defense equipment to Myanmar, a country adjoining India in the southeast, and has helped build its infrastructure, such as roads and airfields that have great strategic significance to India's security. China also maintains a listening post and a radar station on Coco Islands, close to India's outlying island territories of Andamans. China has in the past supported insurgents in India's northeast.

The most disturbing factor overshadowing Sino-Indian relations is China's special relationship with Pakistan, which has received military assistance, missiles, and nuclear and missile technology from China. Although the Chinese have repeatedly tried to assure India that their bilateral relations with Pakistan are not aimed at any third country, it is easy to see how China has effectively boxed India in the subcontinent by using Pakistan as its cat's paw. China is unlikely to abandon Pakistan as its strategic ally in South Asia. Without consistent Chinese support, Pakistan could never have posed a potent threat to India's security. The Sino-Pakistan strategic relationship is thus part of the bigger Chinese game of Asian hegemony.

Many Chinese scholars readily accept that India is essentially a peace-loving country even if they consider it to be a potential challenger to China.4 Mutual trust is, however, a long way off. In the recent past there has been much hype about improvements in Indo-U.S. relations, India's stand on the National Missile Defense issue, and the Indian Navy's goodwill tours to some countries in East Asia. India's possession of an aircraft carrier and its attempt to build another are often cited as the main points of Chinese worries. In short, the Chinese automatically see any action on the part of India that even remotely appears to be extending India's interests outside the subcontinent as hegemonic. The Chinese leadership has repeatedly said that the resolution of the border dispute is best left to the next generation, indicating that it would deal with India only when China had built its comprehensive national strength, and that until then all it needs to do is keep India in its place. Under these circumstances India has no option but to remain watchful while trying to achieve a stable relationship with China.

India's nuclear tests in 1998 also invited China's wrath, and relations soured. It is only now that there are some signs of slow recove ry. While the prospects of a Sino - Indian border war are remote, it is essential that India understand the security implications of the rapidly modernizing Chinese military. It is in this context that this paper attempts to assess the airp ower balance and the growing strength of the People's Liberation Army Air Fo rce (PLAAF). The paper argues that even if the pace of its modernization remains slow, the PLAAF will have decisively surpassed regional air forces in strength and capabilities by the end of the current decade.

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