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China has announced that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will host a bilateral air force training event with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from late August through mid-September 2026. The “Falcon Shield 2026” exercise, the fourth of this series, will be held in Hotan, Xinjiang province. The exercise is notable in several respects, above all for acquainting the PLAAF with one of the world’s best-equipped air forces, although the UAE is unlikely to be able to use its American-supplied hardware in an exercise with China. This year’s iteration is also notable for another reason: the PLAAF has just wrapped up the 2026 iteration of the “Falcon Strike” exercise with Thailand, which is hosted by Thailand, and is about to start the 2026 iteration of the “Eagles of Civilization” exercise with Egypt, which is hosted by Egypt. This amounts to an incredible spike in interaction with foreign air forces for a PLAAF—and, more generally, a PLA—that remains strikingly insular. While such bilateral engagements may bolster the export competitiveness of Chinese armaments and raise the PLAAF’s international profile and that of Chinese armaments, these undertakings are most significant in facilitating the PLAAF’s ongoing evolution by offering it exposure to air forces beyond that of Pakistan, which long served as the PLAAF’s only meaningful conduit to foreign air force practices.