So this brings me to my main point. I understand that it is easy for members on SDF to develop tunnel vision in such echo chambers as SDF (not that there's anything wrong with that), but people are missing the big perspective. I'm getting the feeling that there is a undercurrent assumption among SDF members that the PLAAF and PLA would steamroll their Indian counterparts if the Ladakh standoff ever goes hot, but I have my doubts, which I will explain.
IAF's biggest and perhaps most prominent aerial assets in the region are the Rafale, Su-30MKI, and their new Phalcon AWACS purchase. We know that the Rafale and Su-30MKIs have been deployed to Ambala AFB and other FOBs near the Indo-Chinese border. We also know that the IAF now operates an unknown number of Storm Shadow ALCMs (with 500+ km range) as part of their Rafale package and that their Sukhois are integrated with the air-launched BrahMos (400 km range). The IAF essentially has the hardware to conduct deep strikes against both PLAAF bases and mainland cities/infrastructure while remaining relatively impervious to Chinese anti-air and anti-missile defenses. Sure, neither platform might stand a chance against the J-20, but neither would require much of a hop in order to release their standoff munitions.
The PLAAF, on the other hand, doesn't have anywhere near India's air-to-ground capabilities deployed near the Ladakh region. Their J-11s are not capable of A2G combat while their JH-7/H-6K have no air-to-air capability required to exploit their full payload potential. J-10Cs are not integrated with long-range ALCMs while the J-16s have barely begun deployment in the region. The J-20s - if used at all - will certainly not undertake air-to-surface missions against IAF airfields.
The PLAAF would be forced to be on constant alert for incoming IAF munitions & aircraft while dealing with unstoppable strikes by way of terrain-hugging cruise missiles from Rafales, leaving little to no available assets to conduct air support operations against IA ground forces.
Couple that with their Phalcon AWACs, S-400 missiles, and large contingency of legacy airframes like the Mirage and MiG-29s, and the PLAAF would be opening a can of worms if it attempts anything.
I'm going to highlight the bolded part because that's really the only part that's relevant,or rather the part which is most illustrative of the underpinning peacetime deployment assumptions.
In so far as being "invulnerable" to a surprise air attack is concerned, there are few nations that border each other which are "immune". A limited scope, high intensity cross border strike with limited objectives is not difficult to do and the nature of contemporary offensive weapons and the relative permeability of modern IADS + CAP + AEW&C means it is quite feasible to conduct one or even multiple probing attacks that manages to catch a tactically unprepared enemy off guard.
The nature of the regional geography and higher priority strategic directions means the PLA will never deploy the majority of its combat aviation force to the western strategic direction during peacetime, but that they retain the potential to surge aircraft and munitions into the theater during times of tension or conflict.
In so far as the aircraft capable of strike are concerned, I'm slightly confused as to your weighting of respective IAF and PLAAF A2G strike capabilities.
While the IAF's Rafales are able to carry Storm Shadows, and they are a capable powered stand off strike capability (though of course rather limited in quantity), the rest of the IAF lacks powered stand off strike munitions at all (unless you count the handful of Su-30MKIs with Brahmos integration, and sure, for the purposes of discussion why not include them).
OTOH, the PLA has some, what 100+ H-6Ks each carrying six KD-20 ALCMs with stand off range that we can even conservatively put at over 1500km, and then there are
all of the PLA's JH-7As, J-16s and J-10B/Cs are all KD-88 compatible as well? This isn't to say that it wouldn't be nice if all of the PLA's tactical fighters were compatible with a 500km+ range stand off missile as well, but the 200km range offered by KD-88 and the sheer variety of platforms it is integrated on makes it a very flexible weapon as well.
And of course this is ignoring ground based launch systems (whether it be GLCM or perhaps more messily, SRBMs/IRBMs, so for the purposes of discussion perhaps ignore these for now).
Even in terms of AEW&C, the PLA could afford to deploy just a quarter of its total fleet of KJ-2000s+KJ-200s+KJ-500s and it would outmatch the entire IAF's current AEW&C fleet, and we are not even considering the use of other force multipliers here like ELINT/SIGINT or stand off jamming platforms.
In terms of tactical combat air, I don't think anyone would dismiss the capability of AESA equipped Rafales with Meteors, but again it's a matter of scale.
Having 36 AESA equipped fighter jets or order with a modern high end BVRAAM in service is neat in TYOOL 2020, but the PLA has 300ish AESA equipped J-16s and J-10Cs that are PL-15 compatible (leaving aside J-20s for sporting reasons). And all of this doesn't consider the role that J-11Bs and J-10As would play of course, which field the PL-12 which are less capable than PL-15 or Meteor, but still very much in the "superior-to-R-77-category" that forms the bulk of the IAF's BVRAAM inventory, and of course the effectiveness of which is multiplied further by the depth and scale of your AEW&C fleet.
So if your argument is that the IAF has the potential to carry out some sort of surprise first strike, I'm not in disagreement with that, in so much as that carrying out cross border surprise first strikes is not exactly difficult in this day and age.
But in so far as the force on force balance of A2A, A2G, and airborne force multipliers go -- unless your hypothetical first strike is able to render the bulk of the WTC's air fields inoperable for a significant period of time (and frankly they'd probably have to hit CTC as well) -- the resultant PLA combat air surge in terms of the quality of capabilities they bring to the table but also the quantity of capabilities they can field, would be capable of a significant riposte outstripping the scope of what the IAF's own rather limited strike capabilities are able to offer.
