India - China: China Seeks Air Advantage along the LAC
STORIES, ANALYSES, EXPERT VIEWS
Beijing has steadily built a robust border infrastructure to sustain its mobility and logistics support, increased its army deployments to improve the force ratios, and has continued to sustain its political stand with military presence, despite 29 sessions of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on the India-China Border.
Therefore, ceding to the strident demands for the creation of buffer zones in disputed areas, ostensibly as a precursor to disengagement, writes Diptendu Choudhury (retired air marshal) “could set a dangerous precedent for demands of aerial buffer zones in future — this suits the Chinese to strategically restrict the IAF presence and operations in the region. Forward airstrips close to the border and sovereign air spaces over the disputed areas could become ‘no-fly zones’, inaccessible to the IAF aircraft for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, AD combat air patrols, as well as air mobility and air logistics, if the current situation is not carefully addressed.”
The challenge of the presence of China’s J20 along the LAC
The presence of China’s J20 along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), touted as the stealth counter to the US F22, with its internal carriage capability of long-range air-to-air missiles and precision-guided munitions, “showcases the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) high-end platforms, its ability to use its high-altitude air bases for fighter operations, and its growing ability to project air power in the region to counter the Indian Air Force’s forward deployment of Sukhois and Rafales. It is also a political signal that the border dispute with India is no longer a territorial issue, but one of sovereign airspace. More regular activation of its bases in the future will see increased air activity across our borders close to disputed spaces, and more frequent air violations to test India’s response.”
China seeks to offset IAF’s air power advantage
For now, the IAF’s mainstay fleet of fourth-gen fighters comprising Su30s, MiG29, and M2000, supplemented by two squadrons of the 4.5 Gen Rafale, according to the former Air Marshal “provides an asymmetric advantage, which China is working to neutralise on priority. The government is seized of the declining combat air power inventory of the IAF, but it is the absence of urgency to address this strategic criticality in India’s continental threat that is of serious concern. Two squadrons of 4.5 generation Rafales are nowhere near enough to meet our current and future security requirements, given the over 7,000 km of hostile borders, and the immense volume of sovereign air spaces to be defended. To keep China at bay militarily, the urgent fulfilment of the Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) gap to bolster the 4.5-generation inventory, is not just an IAF requirement but a national security imperative for several reasons.”
As China seeks to offset or at the least balance the IAF’s air power advantage, “its greatest adverse impact will be on India’s deterrence posture and military capability. It will be a mistake to cede India’s current advantage.”
