China's Expanding Fleet Of Y-20 Transport Aircraft Tasked With Delivering Humanitarian Aid To Afghanistan
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On 31 August 2025, a major earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan near the country’s border with Pakistan. The earthquake, which resulted in several thousand fatalities and thousands of injuries, was met with an international humanitarian response. Part of China’s response entailed the transportation of humanitarian supplies by air, a task that was assigned to the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) expanding fleet of Y-20A/Y-20B heavy transport aircraft.
The Chinese-built Xi’an Y-20 had its first flight in 2013 and reportedly entered an initial operating capability in 2016. By circa 2020, a steadily expanding fleet of Y-20 heavy transport aircraft transformed the PLAAF’s airlift capability, which was previously limited to a very modest—given China’s airlift needs—heterogeneous fleet of imported second-hand Soviet-designed Il-76 heavy transport aircraft. Since ca. 2020, the PLAAF’s Y-20 fleet has been used outside of China to deliver Chinese military equipment to foreign customers, transport Chinese military equipment for display at international military industrial exhibitions, facilitate China’s participation in bilateral as well as multilateral military training events, and, not least, deliver humanitarian aid. As the images indicate, China brands its humanitarian aid in a manner similar to the now functionally defunct United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which branded its humanitarian aid shipments with the motto “from the American people,” whereas China uses the motto “for shared future.”
Much of the commentary on the PLA and the implications of China’s ongoing military modernization efforts focuses on the China-United States military balance and military dynamics in the Western Pacific more generally. It is, however, important to recognize that the PLA serves many roles—domestic/regime security, border defence, natural disaster response (within China), and flying the Chinese flag in other countries, a task that encompasses delivering humanitarian aid.