Taiwan’s air force is puny compared to China’s—but it forms only one part of the anti-access/air denial (A2/AD) bubble covering the island.

The airspace and waters around Taiwan remain one of the most contested geographies in the world. China has sought to control Taiwan since 1949, when the Communist Party defeated the Kuomintang and exiled it to the island. Although Beijing sought diplomatic links with Taiwan from the 1990s onward and promoted its return to the fold under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle, its stance toward the island has grown steadily more hostile over the past 15 years, and its naval and air exercises in the region have ramped up. A commonly-cited claim in Washington speculates that Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to have his military ready to invade the island by 2027.

Of course, Taiwan might not defend itself alone. But then again, it might. The United States has always been ambiguous about whether or not it would come to the island’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion; while President Joe Biden repeatedly suggested that his administration would, President Donald Trump has been far more cagey. Indeed, a key purpose of China’s conventional buildup of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is to pose a greater threat to the United States, raising the costs of intervention for Washington and allowing the Communist Party to present the seizure to the United States as a fait accompli.

With this in mind, and assuming the United States did not come to Taiwan’s rescue, what would a conflict between China and Taiwan actually look like? This is a complicated question to answer. Perhaps the simplest type of conflict would be an air war, akin to the one recently fought between the United States and Iran. But such a conflict would not be a simple dogfighting duel. Instead, it would pit China’s enormous offensive air and missile force and Taiwan’s smaller, defensive system built around survival and air denial. In a strict head-to-head contest without outside intervention, China would hold both a qualitative and quantitative advantage; Taiwan could not hope to defeat China, but it might nevertheless “win” by surviving and imposing sufficiently heavy costs upon the Chinese.

How Do China’s and Taiwan’s Air Forces Stack Up?

The asymmetry between Chinese and Taiwanese military strength is daunting—no surprise, considering that China has 70 times the population of Taiwan and 250 times the land area. Taken together, the branches of the PLA have a total of more than 3,000 military aircraft, nearly 2,000 of which are combat aircraft. Key platforms include:

• The J-20 Mighty Dragon fifth-generation stealth fighter;
• The J-16 Hidden Dragon and J-10 Vigorous Dragon multirole fighters, the backbone of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fleet;
• The H-6N bomber, and 
• Various airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, including the KJ-500.

Taiwan’s airpower, though respectable for a small nation, is flimsy by comparison. The Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) boasts fewer than 500 frontline combat jets, none of which are fifth-generation. The strongest aircraft in the Taiwan force structure is the F-16 Fighting Falcon, supplemented with the legacy Mirage 2000, the domestically-made F-CK-1, and the F-5 Tiger.

The ROCAF lacks some of the logistical capabilities of the PLAAF, notably aerial refueling, but does not need them considering that its role is focused on local defense and not overseas power projection. It also has a handful of aging E-2K AEW&C aircraft, though these are not likely to last long in an air war over Taiwan.

How an Air War Between China and Taiwan Might Play Out

China’s air force is built for offensive saturation. Its fighters are supported by ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, electronic warfare aircraft, airborne early warning, naval aviation, and long-range bombers. The J-20 gives China a stealth element, while the J-16 provides heavy strike and long-range missile carriage and the J-10C provides numerical mass.

Taiwan has failed to keep pace with the PLA’s military buildup. It lacks a stealth aircraft of any kind. Its best fighter is the upgraded F-16V, equipped with modern AESA radar but with high observability. Mirage 2000s still offer capable interception, but these are aging and expensive to maintain. The F-CK-1s provide some domestic defensive capacity, but they are solidly outclassed by newer Chinese fighter jets. Taiwan has no expectation of going tic-for-tac with Chinese fighters. Instead, its aircraft are just one part of a broader defensive network. 

China’s doctrine is about striking first and suppressing Taiwan’s radars, cratering its runways, and destroying command nodes. Once this is complete, China would use J-20s and J-16s to hunt surviving aircraft and air defenses, achieving air superiority quickly.

Conversely, Taiwan’s main objective would be to try and survive the first wave—hiding aircraft in hardened shelters and mountain bases, using mobile SAMs and Patriots to deny safe airspace to the PLAAF, and possibly launching opportunistic fighter sorties. Unable to mount a proper head-to-head confrontation, Taiwan would try to survive long enough for outside help or political pressure to matter.

In circumstances of air-to-air combat, China holds the BVR advantage. J-20s and J-16s can carry PL-15 missiles, with very long engagement ranges of up to 200 kilometers (120 miles). Taiwan’s F-16s, by contrast, rely on the AIM-120 AMRAAMs, which have a relatively shorter range of 120–160 kilometers (60–90 miles) depending on variant. Between the stealth capabilities and longer-range missiles, China would easily win the BVR fight. 

On the flip side, if combat ever reached WVR range, the F-16V remains a dangerous knife-fighter. Taiwanese pilots are likely well-trained and defending their homeland; Taiwan could compete in a dogfight. But dogfights would be rare. 

Taiwan’s strongest capability is not its fighter aviation, but its integrated air defense network, combining its small fighter jet fleet with a large number of anti-air missiles and hardened defenses. With one of the most saturated air defense zones in the world, Taiwan fields the Patriot PAC-3, Ski Bow/Tien Kung systems, mobile short-range air defenses, hardened bases, and radar networks. Much as China has attempted to build an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) bubble over the South China Sea, Taiwan is building a similar bubble over itself. The goal of this system is to make Chinese air operations costly and attritional. But while the system would impose significant costs on China, Taiwan cannot hope to “win” the conflict absent outside intervention. 

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a writer and attorney focused on national security, technology, and political culture. His work has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, The Hill, The Spectator, and The Cipher Brief. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global & Joint Program Studies from NYU. More at harrisonkass.com.

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