At the Air Force Command Academy in early January, a mid-level command evaluation boiled down to a handful of decisions and the speed with which they were taken. In a dimly lit tactics hall, Lieutenant Bu Jiawen watched a dynamic situational map flicker across screens, his eyes tracking red and blue symbols as formations braided through contested airspace and naval and ground air-defence feeds updated in real time.
Bu, a 1990s-born fighter pilot who has racked up a string of “firsts” in his unit, is framed in official reporting as the archetype of China’s new generation of aviators: technically proficient, highly trained, and doctrinally oriented toward integrated, beyond-visual-range engagements. His biography in the article—rapid qualifications on three aircraft types, early assignment to combat duty, long hours in simulators and real flights under electromagnetic interference—functions as more than human interest. It is a vignette of institutional transition.
The story maps a cultural shift in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). Where earlier generations celebrated individual flying skill, Bu and his peers are being schooled to think in “systemic” rather than purely personal terms: how an individual jet’s sensors, weapons, data links and supporting platforms contribute to a joint choreography that can overwhelm an opponent’s advantages. Training cycles described in the piece stress data collection, standardized procedures, and rigorous post-flight debriefs in which telemetry and decision chains are replayed and quantified.
Tactical anecdotes underline the emphasis. Video of a J-10C “downing” a stealthy target in a systems-level exercise is referenced as emblematic—less a claim about platform parity and more a statement about how networked tactics, electronic warfare and coordinated doctrine can alter air combat outcomes. In one recent exercise, Bu led a formation to detect, engage and repel an adversary within BVR ranges while operating without warning air support or ground guidance—an explicit showcase of autonomous, distributed action.
The article also highlights how the PLAAF is institutionalizing these lessons. Bu’s unit has produced standard operating procedures across six training dimensions, integrated simulator work that recreates degraded command-and-control and electronic-warfare conditions, and a pedagogy that makes junior pilots accountable to data-driven performance metrics. New pilots are inculcated with historical narratives and a mission ethos that fuse “red” military lineage with a drive to match world-class standards.
For outside observers, the immediate significance of this reporting is threefold. First, it documents that China is not only acquiring new fighters and sensors, but is deliberately investing in the human and organizational practices that convert equipment into combat power. Second, it signals a doctrinal preference for networked, integrated combat over romanticized one-on-one dogfighting—an approach meant to compensate for or even negate adversary hardware advantages. Third, it offers a window into how training tempo, simulation fidelity and standardized procedures are shortening the time it takes to produce operationally effective crews.
There are caveats. The piece implicitly confirms that PLAAF effectiveness will remain bounded by logistics, sustainment, and the quality of higher-level joint command-and-control under real combat stress. Exercises and simulations, however sophisticated, cannot fully reproduce the friction of contested operations. Still, the account of pilots repeatedly flying in degraded environments and rehearsing command succession points to a hardening of resilience that planners in Beijing and rival capitals will have to factor into future calculations.
Bu’s story is as much about institutional learning as individual talent. By turning training data into doctrine, and by socializing younger cohorts into a体系-oriented mindset, the PLAAF is positioning itself to operate in contested electromagnetic and sensor environments. For regional defense planners, the more immediate implication is that China’s air forces are becoming not only larger and better-equipped, but also more doctrinally agile—an evolution that will shape deterrence dynamics across the Western Pacific.