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China has launched its first aircraft carrier in a sign of the country’s
burgeoning naval power.
The defence ministry said the Varyag, which the People’s Liberation Army
purchased as an unfinished hull from Ukraine in 1998, started its first sea
trial in the early hours of Wednesday.
While the long-awaited maiden voyage triggered an outpouring of joy among
patriotic Chinese, the PLA Navy could struggle for years to master the
skills needed to operate the ship.
“China has resolved some of the most fundamental physical issues involved
in launching and landing aircraft from a small moving airfield, but the
process remains immensely difficult,” Andrew Erickson, a China expert at
the US Naval War College, wrote in a note on Wednesday.
Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo said on state television that it could take up to four
more years to train pilots for carrier operations.
Maritime authorities declared a zone near Dalian, a north-eastern port, off-
limits to all other vessels from August 10-14. The trial will test the
carrier’s engines and manoeuvrability, with exercises involving fighter
aircraft not expected to take place for months.
More
On this story
Chinese warship makes regional waves
Tensions increase in South China Sea dispute
Beijing builds navy to hold US at bay
China defends naval actions
China’s ‘eye-in-the-sky’ nears par with US
Military observers believe it would make most sense for the PLA Navy to
station the carrier in either southern Guangdong or Hainan province. That
would position it closer to Taiwan and the South China Sea, both of which
China claims sovereignty over. While relations between China and Taiwan have
improved over recent years, the self-ruled island on Wednesday displayed a
“carrier killer” missile.
But Chinese and foreign military experts said they expected the Varyag to
remain in Dalian for now. “It will probably be put under the Dalian Naval
Academy rather than become a command of its own,” said a foreign military
official in Beijing.
“The carrier is likely to remain in Dalian,” added a PLA officer who asked
not to be identified. “Such an organisational set-up will also make clear
that the carrier is indeed a training platform rather than a threat.”
Bai Yaoping, long viewed as one of the top contenders to command the Varyag,
was recently appointed president of the Dalian Naval Academy, which is
training fighter pilots for China’s new carrier group. A new training base
for carrier fighters is also being built in the region.
China has been anxious not to exacerbate tension in the South China Sea,
which is claimed in its entirety by Beijing, and in parts by Taiwan and
China’s south-east Asian neighbours. Tensions rose in May and June after
Vietnamese and Philippine exploration and fishing vessels clashed with
Chinese coast guard ships.
“There should be no excessive worries or paranoid feelings on China’s
pursuit of an aircraft carrier,” Xinhua, the official news agency, argued
in a commentary, noting that the PLA will be the 10th navy to operate one.
“It will not pose a threat to other countries and other countries should
accept and be used to the reality that we are developing the carrier.”
Chinese nationalists were less diplomatic. “China is the world’s next
superpower, it’s just that we don’t admit that towards the outside world!
” one wrote on Baidu Tieba, an online discussion forum.
“The aircraft carrier dream of three generations has come true!” said
another, while some argued the carrier should be used to take control of
disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Many other internet users, however, poured scorn on the carrier, complaining
that China should instead pay more attention to its myriad domestic
political and social problems.
Beijing has in general been extremely secretive about its military expansion
and modernisation plans, insisting that it pursues a purely defensive
military strategy.
Although the aircraft carrier had been docked in Dalian for nine years for
everyone to see, the defence ministry only officially acknowledged its
existence on July 27 when Senior Colonel Geng Yansheng, its spokesman,
announced that China was refitting an imported carrier for training and
research purposes.
Strategic and technical writings by Chinese military analysts indicate that
Beijing intends to build more carriers. Some US-based analysts believe that
construction has already started in a shipyard on Changxing Island off
Shanghai and have predicted that the PLA, often underestimated in the past,
could have one or two more carriers by 2020.
The government remains mum. “Those overestimating and those underestimating
[China’s carrier programme] are both wrong,” said Sr Col Geng. |
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