On Air Force Day, China's Air Force Opened Its First Overseas Social Media Accounts

At 11:11 on November 11, China's Air Force went live on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and X. The timing was deliberate: the eleventh day of the eleventh month is Air Force Day, marking the founding of the People's Liberation Army Air Force in 1949, and the new overseas accounts posted their first video — "Why Do We Soar" — at precisely 11:11.

The launch makes the Air Force the latest branch of the Chinese military to court foreign audiences directly, following the Ministry of National Defence, the navy, the garrison in Hong Kong and the National Defence University, all of which already run overseas social media accounts. The service's launch materials — a poster series titled "The Air Force Marching Toward the World" and a 30-second trailer — promised English-language short videos and reports on international exchanges, humanitarian operations and joint exercises, in what the state commentary described as a shift from having the military's image shaped by others to "active narration".

The choice of platforms is notable. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and X are all blocked inside China, so the accounts are aimed exclusively at audiences outside the country — a public-diplomacy instrument built for a platform ecosystem that Chinese citizens cannot see. The state media framing was blunt about the purpose: "the more complex the world, the more you must hold the microphone in your own hand."

The anniversary also carried the story of how far the force has come, and Weibo's most-told version is a historical callback. At the founding ceremony of 1949, the young air force had so few serviceable aircraft that Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the same flight formation to fly over Tiananmen twice, so the crowd would see more planes than the force actually possessed. The phrase "our planes never have to fly twice again" (我们的飞机再也不用飞两遍) trended on Baidu's search board on the anniversary, marking the contrast between 1949's borrowed flypast and today's force — which now has, by its own account, systemically organised combat aircraft and an integrated early-warning network.

The launch coincided with a second, more combative anniversary story. On November 11, military media published a detailed account of a confrontation between PLA pilots and a foreign military aircraft that had approached despite warnings, entering weapons range: a twenty-minute standoff in which the Chinese pilot declared "if it shows contrail, we fire — one for one" (出现尾烟就打！一换一) before the foreign aircraft turned away. The story charted on Baidu's board for two days, and it is the counterpoint to the friendly account launch: the same day the Air Force introduced itself to foreign audiences in English, it was also telling domestic audiences about a confrontation with a foreign aircraft in the sky.

The double message is the story. An air force that has spent 77 years moving from a twice-flown flypast to a standoff-ready force is now also building an English-language audience for itself — a public-facing branch of a military that once relied almost entirely on foreign media to describe it.