The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; Chinese: 中国人民解放军空军; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Kōngjūn), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular armed forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLAAF was officially established on 11 November 1949 and it is composed of 5 branches which are aviation, anti- aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles (SAM), radar, and Airborne Corps.
The 395,000 strong People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is organised into five Theater Command Air Forces (TCAF) and 24 air divisions. The largest operational units within the Aviation Corps is the air division, which has 2 to 3 aviation regiments, each with 20 to 36 aircraft. The surface-to-air missile (SAM) Corps is organised into SAM divisions and brigades. There are also three airborne divisions manned by the PLAAF. J-XX and XXJ are names applied by Western intelligence agencies to describe programs by the People's Republic of China to develop one or more fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
The PLAAF first faced combat in the Korean War against the United States using primarily the MIG-15, J-5, and J-6 fighter aircraft. These aircraft and designs were provided by the Soviet Union, which also assisted with the expansion of the Chinese aerospace industry. Changes in the organization of the PLAAF followed by modernization programs in the 1990s and increased technology development in the 21st century has created the J-20 stealth multirole fighter, the first of its kind for China.