During its first few decades, the People¡¦s Liberation Army Air Force strategy was primarily formulated to support the ground forces¡¦ needs. Serious changes in the way the PLAAF thought about its future really began as a result of Deng Xiaoping¡¦s 1985 ¡§strategic decision¡¨ that directed the armed forces to change from preparation for an ¡§early, major, and nuclear war¡¨ to preparation for ¡§local war.¡¨ These changes included writing new teaching materials, conducting research on combination of offensive and defensive capabilities, and doing research on campaign and strategic theory. Wang Hai initiated the concept of combination of offensive and defensive operations in 1987, but it did not receive much publicity. Since the Gulf war, the PLAAF has been grappling with the demands of a radically changed its strategy that underscored the technological obsolescence of their armaments and so fundamentally affected the missions of the air forces that its traditional training principles and objective were largely inapplicable to. In late 1999, the PLAAF¡¦s commander, Liu Shunyao, began to emphasize the need to fight offensive battles and declare PLAAF¡¦s strategy of combination of offensive and defensive operations to build a People¡¦s Liberation Army capable of waging ¡§local war under high-tech conditions.¡¨ In a future high-tech local war, the PLAAF will be called up as the first one to encounter the enemy and fight until the last minute. It is gradually transitioning from a support service into an independent one and from a national territory air defense type of air force into one that conducts combination of offensive and defensive operations. The PLAAF is working on its way to reform its military conformation, adjust its military training guidelines and renew its old equipment. By establishing an all-weather and attack-defense air force to battle in a modern high-tech environment, it is expected to acquire the full ability to perform ¡§local war under high-tech conditions.¡¨ The purposes of the thesis are as follows: 1. Illustrate the tendency and contents of current air power theories and wars. 2. Illustrate the stages of PLAAF¡¦s development and the roles and performances it takes on in the wars. 3. Clarify the theoretic contents of PLAAF¡¦s air power in each stage. 4. Conclude the present and future contents and actions of the PLAAF¡¦s air power on the theoretic and practical aspects. 5. Analyze the future developments and challenges of PLAAF¡¦s air power. Expected to focus on the discussion on the theoretic and practical aspects, the thesis was organized as a modal for explaining the PLAAF¡¦s air power and to be used as the referential basis to illustrate the developments of the past, present and future PLAAF¡¦s air power.