Chinese Air and Missile Power

The Korean conflict was a pivotal event in China's modern military History, constituting an important experience for the newly formed People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), not only as a test case for this fledgling service but also in the later development of Chinese air power. Xiaoming Zhang fills the gaps in the history of this conflict by basing his research on recently declassified Chinese and Russian archival materials and interviews with Chinese participants in the air war over Korea. Zhang's findings challenge conventional wisdom as he compares kill ratios and performance by all sides involved in the war, addresses how air power affected Beijing's decision to intervene, and touches on ground operations and truce negotiations during the conflict. Zhang also offers considerable materials on the training of Chinese aviators and the Soviet role in that training, on Soviet and Chinese air operations in Korea, and on diplomatic exchanges over Soviet military assistance to China.

Chinese air traffic control system: the growth of Chinese air power

Reviewed by: Taiwan's Maritime Security Steven E. Phillips (bio) Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai, editors. Taiwan's Maritime Security. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. xxiii, 184 pp. Hardcover $114.95, ISBN 0-415-29736-2. Due to the increasing militancy of Taiwan's leaders, the growing impatience of China's rulers, and the improving capabilities of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), understanding the military balance and scenarios for armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait becomes more important each day. The problem is not discovering the facts or finding analysis that fits one's predisposition, but rather separating the wheat from the chaff in this extremely active field. Taiwan's Maritime Security, edited by Michael M. Tsai and Martin Edmonds, offers both hard data and insight into a key aspect of the possible war between Taipei and Beijing. Along with two other volumes edited by Tsai and Edmonds, Defending Taiwan: The Future Vision of Taiwan's Defense Policy and Military Strategy and Taiwan's Security and Air Power, the present volume represents the intersection of academic analysis, expert opinion, party politics, and policy advocacy.1 Tsai, a Democratic Progressive Party member who served in the National Legislature and then became the Deputy Representative at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, is credited with organizing the conferences that resulted in two of the three volumes. Both editors and many of the authors are actively involved with Taiwan Defense Affairs (Guofang zhengce pinglun ), a recently established bilingual journal from the Institute for Taiwan Defense and Strategic Studies. Tang Yiau-Ming, Taiwan's Minister of Defense, lays out the agenda of the volume: "I hope the publication of this book will prompt the Taiwanese people to attach greater importance to the island's national security and sea power development, while rendering even more support and encouragement to the ROC Armed Forces" (p. xiii). Two questions unify these essays: to what extent can the Republic of China (ROC) resist a PLA attack or blockade today, and can the ROC keep pace with the mainland's naval modernization program? The four brief chapters of part 1 focus on the PLA Navy (PLAN). Chen Te-Men, Director of the Research and Publishing Office at Taiwan's National Defense University, begins with an overview of PLAN modernization, which seeks to transform the force from a brown-water to a green-and eventually a blue-water navy capable of deterring if not defeating the United States. He also introduces the weapon systems and vessels of this naval-modernization effort. Part 1 also has a very brief article by prolific scholar Andrew Scobell on "China's Strategy toward the South China Sea." He characterizes the PRC strategy in the context of a "slow intensity conflict" where the Chinese gradually move from asserting sovereignty to physical control over the course of decades. Such a description reflects the [End Page 330] ideas in his well-received recent book examining case studies of PLA war fighting, China's Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March.2 Next is a broad overview on the impact of PLAN modernization on regional security by Sam Bateman and Chris Rahman of the Centre for Maritime Policy at the University of Wollongong in Australia. This chapter points out that security issues involve more than warships and also "include a large global shipping fleet, vast shipbuilding capacity, and a major role in the management of regional oceans and seas and their resources" (p. 15). Bernard D. Cole evaluates the impact of PLAN modernization on Taiwan's security. Cole, author of The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-First Century,3 paints a less than glowing picture of PLAN capabilities, but posits that "the future promises a degree of Chinese air superiority that may cancel out any Taiwan naval superiority" (p. 72 ). The conclusions drawn in the Bateman-Rahman and Cole chapters suggest that the three volumes edited by Tsai and Edmonds should be read (or, better yet, published) together in order to highlight the multidimensional nature of the cross-Strait military balance. Given the backgrounds of these authors, part 2, which...

Journal Article China Shakes the World, A Century of Chinese Revolution 1851–1949, Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's Support for Wars of National Liberation, Communist Chinese Air Power and Mao Papers: Anthology and Bibliography Get access China Shakes the World. By Jack Beiden. Introduction by Owen Lattimore. New York, London: Monthly Review Press. 1970. 524 pp. Index. $8.50. £3.90.A Century of Chinese Revolution 1851–1949. 2nd ed. By Wolfgang Franke. Translated by Stanley Rudman. Oxford: Blackwell. 1970. 202 pp. Bibliog. Index. £1.75.Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's Support for Wars of National Liberation. By Peter van Ness. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. 1970. 266 pp. Bibliog. Index. $6.50. £3.10.Communist Chinese Air Power. By Richard M. Bueschel. New York, Washington: Praeger. 1968; London: Pall Mall. 1969. 238 pp. Bibliog. Index. $6.95. £2.90.Mao Papers: Anthology and Bibliography. Ed. by Jerome Ch'en. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press. 1970. 221 pp. Bibliog. £2.75. Neville Maxwell Neville Maxwell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 47, Issue 4, October 1971, Pages 865–867, https://doi.org/10.2307/2625756 Published: 01 October 1971

Abstract The War in Korea. By General Matthew B. Ridgway. (Barrie & Rockliffe/Cresset.) 50s. MacArthur as Military Commander. By Gavin Long. (Batsford.) 63s. Communist Chinese Air Power. By Richard M. Bueschel. (Frederick A. Praeger, New York.) $6.95. People's War. The Conditions and the Consequences in China and in South-East Asia. By J. L. S. Girling. (George Allen and Unwin.) 45s. The Arms Trade in International Relations. By Lewis A. Frank. (Pall Mall.) 146s. The Suez Contractors. By Sir Norman Kipping. Introduction by Field-Marshal Sir Richard Hull. (Kenneth Mason Publications, Ltd.) 30s. End of an Illusion: A Critical Analysis of the Cold War Alliances. By James Avery Joyce. (Allen and Unwin.) 50s. The Body Politic. By Ian Gilmour. (Hutchinson). 70s. African Armies and Civil Order. By J. M. Lee. (Chatto and Windus.) 35s. The Great Divide. Britain-India-Pakistan. By H. V. Hodson. (Hutchinsons.) 84s. Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension. By J. C. Hurewitz. (Pall Mall.) 95s. Prague's 200 Days: The struggle for democracy in Czechoslovakia. By Harry Schwartz. (Pall Mall.) 50s. Victory in the West, Vol. II. The Defeat of Germany. By Major L. F. Ellis with Lt.-Col. A. E. Warhurst. (H.M.S.O.) 90s. Saturday at M.I.9. By Airey Neave. (Hodder and Stoughton.) 45s. The Battle for Rome. By W. G. F. Jackson. (Batsford.) 45s. U-Boat Intelligence. By R. M. Grant. (Putnam.) 50s. Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles. Edited by Harrison E. Salisbury. Translated by Theodore Shabad. (Macdonald.) £2 5s. The Canaris Conspiracy. By Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel. (Heinemann.) 50s. The Battle of the Java Sea. By David A. Thomas. (Stein and Day, New York.) 42s. The Siege of Leningrad. By Harrison E. Salisbury. (Secker & Warburg.) 84s. Royal Australian Navy 1942–1945. By G. Hermon Gill. (Angus Robertson.) 40s. AVIATION: British Military Aircraft Serials, 1912–1969. By Bruce Robertson. (Ian Allan.) 35s. A History of Marine Aviation. By John Killen. (Frederick Muller.) 50s. De Gaulle. By Aidan Crawley. (Collins.) 60s. Charles Parquin. (Military Memoirs). Edited by B. T. Jones. (Longmans.) 50s. The Subaltern: A Chronicle of the Peninsular War. By G. R. Gleig. (Leo Cooper.) 42s. Jack Tar: The story of the British sailor. By John Laffin. (Cassell.) 6s. With a Machine Gun to Cambrai: The tale of a young Tommy in Kitchener's Army, 1914–1918. By George Coppard. (H.M.S.O.) 6s.

Pan American Airlines and the Birth of Chinese Air Power

Communist Chinese Air Power

After the eruption of the Pacific War, the USA established the China–Burma– India Theatre and began military co-operation with the Chinese fighting Japan. From 1942 to 1945, the USA rendered air assistance to China by establishing an American air force in China, delivering airplanes to the Chinese air force, training Chinese pilots, and transporting war materials by air to the Chinese. American air support played a significant role in defeating Japan. During that time disputes between the American and Chinese leaders arose over US air aid and air supply to China, which created Sino-US diplomatic tensions and a crisis in Sino-US military co-operation. There were several reasons for this: the different military goals and strategies of the USA and China, Stilwell's emphasis on the role of ground forces and his contempt for air power, the construction of the Ledo Road, and the lack of understanding of Chinese military politics. However, the Chinese demand for more US air support was justified and reasonable at that time. If American military and civilian leaders had had a better understanding of Chinese culture, including Chinese politics and the Chinese military, as well as the characteristics of Chinese leaders and others, both the Americans and the Chinese would have solved the problem of air support for China. It seems that the Sino-US dispute over air aid and air supply to China was not the fault of China or the USA nor of Stilwell or Chiang Kai-shek. It was inevitable in the circumstances.

Communist Chinese Air Power.