China is catching up with Western air forces, the Department of Defense told members of Congress in a report detailing the U.S. military competitor’s efforts to build up its defenses.
“The 2022 National Defense Strategy identifies the [The People’s Republic of China] as [an] increasingly capable military as the department’s top pacing challenge,” a senior DOD official told reporters Thursday.
Together, China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) compile the largest military aviation force in the Indo-Pacific region, according to the DOD.
“The PLAAF continues to modernize with the delivery of domestically built aircraft and a wide range of [uncrewed aerial systems] UASs,” the DOD said in the 212-page China military power report. “In October 2019, the PLAAF signaled the return of the airborne leg of its nuclear triad after the PLAAF publicly revealed the H-6N as its first nuclear-capable, air-to-air refuelable bomber.”
China is working to rapidly modernize and expand its nuclear forces in the next decade at a pace that “dwarfs previous attempts in both scale and complexity,” the DOD said. Defense officials estimate that, as of May, China had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads.
In 2022, there was also an uptick in the country’s dangerous or coercive actions in the region, according to the DOD.
“For example, between the fall of 2021 and fall of 2023, the United States documented over 180 instances of PLA coercive and risky air intercepts against U.S. aircraft in the region,” it said. “Over the same period, the PLA also conducted around 100 instances of coercive and risky operational behavior in the air domain against U.S. allies and partners.”
Earlier this week, Pentagon officials released a collection of declassified images and videos of 15 recent cases in what they said underscored “an increasing trend of coercive and risky operational behavior by the PLA since the fall of 2021.”
