Every war the People’s Liberation Army Air Force has fought
The air force has not fought since 1979. Chinese claims from Korea and the Taiwan Strait are given as claims, beside the figures of the other side: Beijing never accepted the ROC figures for 1958, and American analyses of Korea differ from the Chinese count. Where a consolidated sortie or loss figure exists in the official record it is given here; where accounts disagree, the range is shown and the disagreement named. Blank cells are blank because no figure could be verified, not because the fighting was small.
From the MiG-15 war over Korea in 1950 to the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, which it sat out.
| Conflicto | Años | Contra | Avión principal | Salidas | Avión perdido | |
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| La guerra de Coreathe air war over MiG AlleyPLA Air Force (as the Chinese People’s Volunteers’ air force, in a joint command with North Korea) | 1950–1953 | United States and United Nations Command | MiG-15, La-11, Tu-2 | 231 | ||
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Fought UN air forces with MiG-15s alongside the Soviet 64th Fighter Aviation Corps, mainly between the Yalu and the Chongchon. China entered the war in October 1950, when its air force was barely a year old. The Soviet 64th Fighter Aviation Corps was attached to the Chinese from November 1950 and carried the brunt of the early fighting, while Chinese divisions trained and then rotated into combat. Wikipedia’s MiG-15 article dates the first large PLAAF engagement with Sabres to 25 September 1951. Units of the joint command claimed 211 F-86s, 72 F-84s and F-80s and 47 other aircraft — 330 in all — for the loss of 231 aircraft and 116 airmen. Chinese aces included Wang Hai of the 3rd Fighter Aviation Division, credited with shooting down or damaging nine aircraft and later PLAAF commander (1985–1992), and Zhao Baotong, the first Chinese ace. American claims for MiGs destroyed covered Soviet, Chinese and North Korean aircraft together, and a later RAND study put the Sabre’s real exchange ratio at about 1.8 to 1 overall. Resultado Armistice of 27 July 1953, no peace treaty. The war made the PLAAF a jet force and produced its first aces. Both sides’ claims exceed the other side’s admitted losses. Chinese totals and US claims cannot be matched one to one, because Soviet pilots flew in Chinese markings and US claims do not separate nationalities.
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| The First Taiwan Strait CrisisYijiangshan and the Dachen IslandsPLA Air Force | 1954–1955 | Republic of China | MiG-15, Tu-2, Il-10 | |||
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Air strikes and air cover for the capture of the Yijiangshan Islands; fighters in the air battles over the coast. The PLA calls the Yijiangshan landing of 18 January 1955 its first joint operation: PLA aircraft attacked ROC artillery and communications on the islands from 08:00 to 13:00 and drove off ROC warships. Months earlier, on 23 July 1954, PLA fighters shot down a Cathay Pacific airliner off Hainan, and US Navy aircraft searching for survivors shot down two PLA fighters. The aircraft types listed are those generally attributed to the operation; the specific types were not confirmed from the sources reached for this page. Resultado The PLA took Yijiangshan on 18 January 1955; the ROC evacuated the Dachen Islands with US Navy help. Aircraft types UNVERIFIED in the reachable sources; the PRC and ROC accounts of air losses differ and were not found.
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| The 1956 bombing in western Sichuanthe Tibetan uprising in KhamPLA Air Force | 1956 | Tibetan rebels | Tu-4 | 0 | ||
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Two Tu-4 bombers attacked monasteries held by Tibetan rebels. According to Wikipedia’s Tu-4 article, which cites the aviation historian Yefim Gordon, two PLAAF Tu-4s bombed monasteries at Lithang, Chathreng and Bathang during the 1956 uprising, the Tu-4’s only combat mission in Chinese service. The Chinese government describes its operations in Tibet as the suppression of a rebellion; Tibetan exile accounts describe the same events as the repression of a national uprising. This page gives no casualty figure because none was found in a reachable, attributable source. Resultado The PLA suppressed the rising in Kham; the wider Tibetan uprising followed in 1959. Single secondary source; Chinese official accounts of the air role were not reached. |
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| The Second Taiwan Strait Crisisthe Kinmen crisisPLA Air Force | 1958 | Republic of China | MiG-15, MiG-17 | |||
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Fought the ROC Air Force over the strait during the shelling of Kinmen. On 24 September 1958 ROC F-86s carrying the new AIM-9 Sidewinder, supplied under a secret US Navy programme, met PLAAF MiGs over the strait; the ROC and US account is that this was the first combat use of air-to-air missiles. One missile lodged unexploded in a MiG-17, was recovered by the Chinese and passed to the Soviet Union, which copied it as the K-13. The loss figures come from ROC and American sources; Beijing has not published a matching account, and the two numbers quoted on Wikipedia are not consistent with each other. Resultado The shelling ended in an alternate-day pattern; the islands stayed with the ROC. Only one side’s figures, and they conflict.
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| Air defence against overflightsthe RB-57D and U-2 shoot-downsPLA Air Force (surface-to-air missile units and fighters) | 1959–1967 | Republic of China and United States | S-75 (SA-2), J-6 | |||
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Shot down ROC reconnaissance aircraft flying for Taiwan and the United States with S-75 missiles. On 7 October 1959 a Chinese-operated S-75 battery near Beijing hit an ROC RB-57D at about 20 km with a salvo of three missiles, the first aircraft ever destroyed by a surface-to-air missile; China credited the kill to fighters at the time to protect the secret. Between 9 September 1962 and 8 September 1967 PLAAF missile units shot down five U-2s of Taiwan’s Black Cat Squadron. Majors Chen Huai, Lee Nanpin and Captain Huang Jungpei were killed; Yeh Changti and Chang Liyi were captured and released in 1982. In 1965 a J-6 damaged a USAF F-104 near Hainan. Resultado Taiwan’s Black Cat Squadron flew about 220 missions, about half over the mainland, before the overflights ended. Chinese figures for other claimed shoot-downs (drones and aircraft over southern China) were not found in a reachable source and are left out.
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| La guerra de Vietnamair defence of North Vietnam and southern ChinaPeople’s Liberation Army (anti-aircraft units) and PLA Air Force | 1965–1969 | Estados Unidos | J-6, J-5 | |||
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Chinese anti-aircraft forces defended Hanoi and the transport lines at North Vietnam’s request; PLAAF fighters defended Chinese airspace near the border and Hainan. Ho Chi Minh asked Mao for anti-aircraft artillery in May 1965, and PLA forces began entering North Vietnam in July 1965; more than 320,000 Chinese personnel served there between June 1965 and March 1968, 170,000 at the peak in 1967. How many of the anti-aircraft units belonged to the air force rather than the army is not stated in the sources reached. Over China itself, a J-6 damaged a USAF F-104 near Hainan in 1965. Resultado Chinese forces withdrew from North Vietnam by 1969–1970. Air force share of the deployment and all claims UNVERIFIED; figures dropped.
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| The Sino-Vietnamese Warthe 1979 border warPLA Air Force | 1979 | Vietnam | J-6, Q-5 | |||
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Limited support only: Deng Xiaoping ordered the navy and air force to stay out of the war. The war ran from 17 February to 16 March 1979. Because Vietnam’s air defences were among the strongest in the world and Beijing wanted Moscow to see a limited war, Deng Xiaoping kept the air force almost entirely out; it flew only limited support on the Chinese side of the border. It remains the last war in which the PLAAF took part, and the air force’s absence was one reason later reformers pressed for modernisation. Resultado Chinese ground forces withdrew on 16 March 1979; the border clashes continued through the 1980s. The aircraft listed are the types then in front-line service; which ones flew support is not confirmed. |
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Cada cifra, verificada
Cifras verificadas el 30 de septiembre de 2026. Back to the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.