China converts 737s into military surveillance aircraft first

The Chinese Military Aviation blog last week posted a new photo showing a Boeing 737-300 as a military surveillance aircraft in the Chinese air force fleet.

Two questions: How did the People's Liberation Army Air Force get a 737 surveillance aircraft three years before the US military, which has just started flying prototypes of the 737-based P-8A? And, not least, who is in trouble?

Richard Fisher, senior fellow for Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, answered both questions for me this morning.

Fisher, it turns out, broke the story of the PLAAF 737s at the 2004 Zhuhai air show, as he browsed a promotional video playing at the Xian Aircraft exhibit booth.

"I noticed what looked like - Good God, is that a 737?" Fisher recalls.

He snapped a photo showing the 737 parked next to H-6 bombers on the flightline outside Xian's factory. The airframe bore the familiar marks of surveillance aircraft, he says.

By the time Fisher returned home, images of two 737s operating as surveillance aircraft in the PLAAF fleet had appeared across the Internet. Modifying US-made airliners into military surveillance aircraft is illegal without a presidential-level waiver, which seems unlikely in China's case.

Despite the photographic evidence, the US government apparently never sanctioned Xian or Chinese airlines, both of which remain a huge part of Boeing's supply chain and order backlog, respectively, for civilian aircraft.

"Somehow our bureaucracy dropped the ball either for what they consider legitimate reasons, or," says Fisher, "for reasons we're not privy to, such as private lobbying from unnamed corporate forces who would not want sanctions placed on China which would have an impact on the sale of Boeing commercial aircraft."
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