CHINA-PLA NAVY: SECOND AIRCRAFT CARRIER
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Xinhua reported that China’s first indigenously-produced aircraft carrier, was officially launched on April 26, 2017, at China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation’s Dalian shipyard two days after the PLA Navy's 68th anniversary. Very unusually the launch adopted the western custom of smashing a bottle of champagne against the side of the vessel. Retired PLAN Sr Captain Li Jie noted that the event in Dalian was “China’s first aircraft carrier launching ceremony”. Likely to be called the Shandong, it is currently designated as CV-001A and is expected to be operational by 2020. China still needs to debug equipment, finish outfitting the ship, and conduct comprehensive trials. A PLA statement said the launch “signifies major progress for our country’s indigenous design and construction of aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers are still the most operationally powerful and worthwhile platforms at sea.” China Military online said the aircraft carrier’s “scaffold has been removed and red undercoat has been painted below the ship’s waterline in Dalian, Liaoning Province. Once launched, the ship is expected to be commissioned into service with the PLAN’s North Sea Fleet or East Sea Fleet within the next two years. The new Type 001A aircraft carrier is an improved variant of the PLAN’s only operational aircraft carrier, the 60,000-ton Type 001 Liaoning — a retrofitted Soviet-era Admiral Kuznetsov-class multirole aircraft carrier. With a displacement of around 65,000 tons, the Shandong will only be slightly larger than the Type 001 ship. Chinese military experts see a big future for China’s aircraft carrier development program. Chinese military expert Cao Weidong explained to the state-owned CCTV that China needs multiple large-scale operational platforms to mitigate those threats, stressing that China needs more than one or two carriers. Chinese military expert Xu Guangyu said in a recent interview with BTV channel that "The third one, however, will benefit from major breakthroughs,and may even be nuclear-powered." Wang Xiaoxuan, an expert on military issues wrote in the State-run People's Daily Online that "With its aircraft carriers and their vessel formations, China's navy can patrol the Pacific and Indian oceans to safeguard its national economic as well as scientific and technological interests."The Chinese navy is moving towards nuclear-powered aircraft carriers with bigger tonnage and improved combat capabilities. Yin Zhuo, a retired PLA Navy Rear Admiral and Chinese military expert, said that China needs carrier battle formations in both the South China Sea and East China Sea, where China is involved in territorial disputes with multiple claimant states. He suggested that there be at least three aircraft carriers operating in each sea.Powered by oil-fired boilers and steam turbines, the ship will have an estimated operational range of 3,850 nautical miles (7,130 kilometers) at about 32 knots. Powered by oil-fired boilers and steam turbines, the ship will have an estimated operational range of 3,850 nautical miles (7,130 kilometers) at about 32 knots. Yin Zhuo, a senior researcher at the PLAN’s Equipment Research Center, “in order to protect China’s territories and overseas interests, China needs two carrier strike groups in the West Pacific Ocean and two in the Indian Ocean. So we need at least five to six aircraft carriers.” Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert who previously served in the PLA rocket forces, said the carrier would probably enter service in 2019. “The South China Sea is exactly where the aircraft carrier comes in,” he said. “Its role will be to help build China’s Great Wall of the sea, in line with the basic security plan of Chinese navy.” A 2015 white paper drafted by the defence ministry said China’s navy would gradually shift its focus from “offshore waters defence” to “open-seas protection”. (Comment: An article headlined “India needs to learn that economic development comes before a naval buildup” in the state-run Global Times said: “Aircraft carriers are seen as symbols of a nation's military might, but the construction of them consumes huge amounts of resources, thus requiring developing countries to learn how to keep their military ambitions in check.” China had no aircraft carrier till 2012 while India’s first was purchased from Britain in the late 1950s. China’s pursuit of military development has been in “sync” with its overall economic development, the article said. It added China’s priority was developing its economy and then building “resource consuming” aircraft carriers. “India itself could be taken as a negative example for a buildup of aircraft carriers...New Delhi is perhaps too impatient to develop an aircraft carrier"". The article said ''the country is still in its initial stages of industrialisation and there will be many obstacles that stand in the way of a buildup of aircraft carriers.” China would have finished work on an indigenous carrier “several years ago if Beijing had simply wanted to engage in an arms race to have more influence in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions”.) |