China’s Expanding Fleet Of AWACS Planes Threaten US Forces

Over the past few years, we have been witnessing a dizzying array of advanced new Chinese military aircraft, from fighters to bombers to transports and refueling aircraft.

What has gotten less attention is the role of Airborne Warning And Control Systems (AWACS), better known today as Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) planes, in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and navy (PLAN).

But in today’s modern battlefield, without a solid fleet of these advanced aircraft with massive rotating radar domes, the large and growing Chinese combat fleet would be extremely limited in its capabilities.

Hence China’s determined focus on developing these planes.

And now China’s diverse, huge and growing AEW&C fleet, with at least 60 fixed-wing types now in service, actually dwarfs that of the U.S., where until recently, a general lack of investment has led to a shrinking and rapidly aging fleet.

As The War Zone (TMZ) reported in 2023:

Having such a large and expanding fleet of AEW&C platforms and their particular characteristics also point to how these aircraft might actually be used in a potential future conflict, perhaps one involving the U.S. military. With this kind of capacity, China should be able to not only cover the approaches to their most strategic areas but also operate from more dispersed and even austere bases. Smaller types, in particular, like the turboprop-powered KJ-200 and KJ-500 series are especially well suited to these kinds of operations and are regular features at China’s island outposts, as well as operating routinely in the highly strategic Taiwan Strait.

Overall, and in contrast to the U.S. Air Force, China appears to have tailored its AEW&C fleet to military operations that are unilateral and regional in nature, with the focus on providing aerial vigilance near its own borders and nearby territories it claims as its own. This reality is reflected in its large turboprop AEW&C fleet which does not have to transit far to be on station. The United States, meanwhile, sees its military operations as being primarily expeditionary in nature and based around coalition forces. Hence its investment in the jet-powered E-3 Sentry, which numbers half that of China’s fleet and is likely to shrink further in the near term.

Until now, the most current Chinese AEW&C aircraft were the KJ-500As. Up to 10 of those are reportedly in service within three units. KJ-500Hs assigned to the PLAN Naval Aviation have not yet been seen with the refueling probe, but they began to wear low-visibility insignia and serial numbers in October 2022.

Meanwhile, with the PLAN’s rapid launch of several aircraft carriers, a plane very similar to the U.S. Navy’s E-2D Hawkeye carrier-based AWACS has also recently been seen. Its first fixed-wing shipborne AEW&C aircraft, the KJ-600, has almost exactly the same configuration as the E-2D, is powered by two turboprop engines and features a rotodome, folding wings and quadruple tail fins. (RELATED: Red Storm Rising: Preparing For The PLA’s Assault On Taiwan)

The PLAN also reportedly has some AEW&C helicopters based on Russian Ka-27/28 Helix anti-submarine rotorcraft.

However, perhaps most interesting is China’s new KJ-700 radar plane, the latest addition to China’s rapidly growing family of AEW&C platforms in service with the PLAN and PLAAF.

It remains somewhat mysterious, although according to TWZ, it appears to be something of a “multi-intelligence” aircraft, combining both airborne radar as well as an array of electro-optical and infrared sensors, likely intended to track targets across the air, sea and potentially land as well.

And TWZ adds, it “could include command and control (C2) as well as communications networking, especially valuable over the long distances in the Indo-Pacific theater.”

Referring to the KJ-700, TWZ concludes:

Overall, the fact that China has introduced yet another AEW&C platform fits within its established doctrine of developing a range of different solutions to meet different aspects of this mission, as well as to keep pace with the expected types of threat.

Chinese AEW&C aircraft now do much more than keep watch over airspace and vectoring interceptors to respond to incoming fighters and bombers. As well as using their radar sensors for what was traditionally their primary task, these platforms are now much more than radar planes, with ESM suites that can passively detect and triangulate radio frequency emissions over long distances.

In the case of the KJ-700 specifically, if this is indeed a multi-intelligence aircraft, it is likely tailored to the kinds of missions that might be expected during a future conflict between China and the United States.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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