People's Liberation Army Air Force is the world's second largest air force after the USA. By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Business Insider By continuing to use our website, you agree to our The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has actually shrunk from its estimated 1992 level of more than 3 million in active service.The US military has about 1.4 million active service members, which represents a much lower total number of personnel, but a much higher percentage of the population engaged in the military.Also important to consider is that China's last war was a short fight against Vietnam in 1979. "The CRS report warns against "mirror imaging" or "tacitly and perhaps unconsciously assuming that one's values and belief sets are shared by the other party—can lead to less accurate assessments of the other party's intentions" when analyzing Chinese military aspects.Simply put, just because China is pushing a massive, modern military doesn't mean it'd wield it in the same way the US would.The most striking difference between US and Chinese military doctrine would be the Chinese concept of "active defense. Although China's ability to project power to more distant locations remains limited, its reach is growing, and in the future U.S. military dominance is likely to be challenged at greater distances from China's coast. China is on track to have quantitative parity or better in surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), parity in missile launch cells, and quantitative inferiority only in multi-mission land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs).The DoD has reported that the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) is "rapidly closing the gap with western air forces across a broad spectrum of capabilities," and that China "will endeavor to shift its focus from territorial air defense to both defense and offense. China is effectively boxed out of the deeper pacific by a string of islands and nations around its borders.It has also made a point of modernizing its naval vessels, especially in the area of submarines and antiship cruise missiles.China plans to increase its submarine fleet from 62 to as many as 78 by 2020, according to the US Department of Defense.

"Additionally, China may seek to buy Russia's advanced S-400 missile-defense system, which would bolster its already-substantial missile defenses.China has tremendous space assets, including 70 military satellites used for communications, navigation, positioning and timing, meteorology, and electronic and signals intelligence.Additionally, China sees the US's reliance on GPS technology and space assets as a weakness, and has developed antisatellite capabilities, such as directed-energy weapons, satellite jammers, and antisatellite missiles.There is some disagreement among experts on China's cyber-warfare capabilities, but the following is known:China has three types of cyber forces: (1) specialized military network warfare forces in the PLA, (2) PLA-authorized teams of network warfare specialists in government organizations, and (3) non-governmental forces that may be mobilized for network warfare operations.Potentially, China could access foreign networks and even deny foreign nations access to their own networks.There have been numerous and credible reports that China has used cyber espionage to steal military secrets from the US.By its own admission, China has deficiencies in training, cooperation between services, administration, human capital, force development, and logistics.Under the rule of the Communist Party, the Chinese military has long had to avoid honest self-assessment and focus instead on presenting only positives to the country at large, while the force grows less experienced in real combat.According to the report: "Chinese military analysts assess that it is not yet capable of carrying out complex operations overseas or fighting and winning a 'local war under informationized conditions,' their term for the type of conflict that they perceive China is most likely to face. 1. Congressional Research Service

"China's use of cyber warfare against the US is a prime example of this philosophy. It is also undergoing efforts to build additional aircraft carriers, and currently using its current vessel, the Liaoning, to train on and design carrier-ready aircraft.This testimony from an expert on China's navy before Congress in July 2015 illustrates just how far the PLA has come:China is on course to deploy greater quantities of missiles with greater ranges than those systems that could be employed by the US Navy against them.

There are approximately 3,30,000 soldiers in Chinese air force "PLAAF".

For the Chinese, there is little difference between peacetime and wartime cyber espionage, and they have engaged in stealing military secrets from the US and others because they can.The report, written by Ian E. Rinehart, a CRS analyst in Asian affairs, urges Congress and military leadership to examine a "Chinese way of war.