Liaoning — First Step to Building China’s Carrier Battle Group

September 25, 2012 is a red letter day for People’s Republic of China (PRC), when it ceased to be the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, not possessing an aircraft carrier. The induction of PRC’s aircraft carrier Liaoning is the first step in building a Carrier Battle Group (CBG) for People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Before discussing the acquisition of the Liaoning, it is imperative to glance through China’s maritime traditions and examine why it needs a CBG?

China’s maritime traditions

The maritime history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives existing since the late Spring and Autumn Period (722 BC — 481 BC) about the ancient maritime power of China and the various ship types used in war1. China was the leading maritime power in the years 1405-1433, when Chinese shipbuilders began to build massive oceangoing junks2. In modern times, the current People’s Republic of China (Mainland China) and Republic of China (Taiwan)’s governments continue to maintain standing navies with the People’s Liberation Army Navy and the Republic of China Navy, respectively.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea,

written by a Greek, describes trade in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, including the harbours of Sri Lanka and the west coast of India, the customs regime imposed by Rome in the Red Sea, and the difficult possibility of reaching China by sea (China had been known to Greeks since the 105th BC, but the land route was better known). It also describes the flourishing trade through Adulis, the Red Sea port of the Aksumite civilization in Ethiopia, which flourished 101st-7th BC3.

In the year 107 BC, about 200,000 Persians, Arabs, Indians, Malays, and other foreigners lived in Guangzhou as traders, artisans and metalworkers4.

Faxian or more commonly known as Fa-Hien or Fahsien (ca. 337 – ca. 422) was a Chinese Buddhist monk, who, between 399 and 412 travelled to India and Sri Lanka to bring Buddhist scriptures. His journey is described in his work A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Being an Account by Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline5.

On Faxian’s return to China he landed at Laoshan in modern Shandong province, 30km east of the city of Qingdao. After landing, he proceeded to Shandong’s then-capital, Qingzhou, where he remained for a year translating and editing the scriptures he had collected. His work is not only one of the world’s greatest travel books, but is filled with invaluable accounts of early Buddhism, and the geography and history of numerous countries along the so-called Silk Roads at the turn of the 5th century AD.

In the year 616, the maternal uncle of the prophet Muhammad, Abu Waqqas, joined a trading voyage from Ethiopia to Guangzhou. He then returned to Arabia, and came back to Guangzhou 21 years later with a copy of the Koran. He founded the Mosque of Remembrance, near the Kwang Ta (Smooth Minaret) built by the Arabs as a lighthouse. His tomb is in the Muslim cemetery in Guangzhou6.

Four missionaries were sent to China by the prophet Mohammad, and two died in Quanzhou. They were buried as honoured guests, and the tombs repeatedly repaired and embellished until the present7.

The year 748 marks when a Chinese monk Jian Zhen (Jianzhou, of Daming monastery in Yangzhou), failed in his fifth attempt to sail to Japan, and drifted to Guangzhou where ‘many big ships came from Borneo, Persia, Qunglun [Indonesia/Java]… with… spices, pearls and jade piled up mountain high’. The largest ship looked like a mansion, with sails many zhangs high. [1 zhang = 3.11 metres.] Sri Lanka was by now the major shipping centre, with ships visiting from India, Persia and Ethiopia; Sri Lankan ships had gangways many zhangs high⁸.

More light on China’s maritime history is shed by Joseph Needham’s Science & Civilization in China, quoted earlier. He reports that in the year 758, Arabs looted and burned Guangzhou. The emperor then closed Guangzhou to foreigners for fifty years⁹.

During the late 8th and early 9th centuries, China had very large river and canal boats, estimated at 700 tons. ‘The crews of these ships lived on board; they were born, married and died there. The ships had… lanes (between the dwellings), and even gardens. Each one had several hundred sailors… South to Chiangsi and north to Huainan they made one journey in each direction every year, with great profit The sea-going junks (haipo) are foreign ships. Every year they come to Canton and An-i. Those from Ceylon are the largest…When these ships go to sea; they take with them white pigeons, so that in case of shipwreck the birds can return with messages.¹⁰‘

Ninth Century onwards, Chinese merchant ships sailing from Guangzhou were calling regularly at Sufala on the east African coast, to cut out Arab middlemen^11.

In the year 878, Chinese rebel forces under Huang Chao, who sacked Guangzhou, killed an estimated 120,000 Jews, Christians, Muslims and other foreigners, in addition to local residents¹².

Tang dynasty [618-907 CE]: Arab merchant Shulama praised the seaworthiness of large Chinese-built ships, but noted that the draft was too deep to enter the Euphrates, necessitating small boats to land passengers and cargo. Ships crossing the Indian Ocean were about 20 zhang long and could carry 6-700 passengers¹³.

In 1154, Al-Idrisi, a Moroccan geographer, published his Geography, which contained a world map, and described Chinese merchant ships carrying iron, swords, leather, silk, velvet and other textiles to Aden, the Indus and Euphrates. He commented that Quanzhou’s silk was unparalleled, and Hangzhou renowned for both glassware and silk¹⁴.

In the period 1163-1190, during the reign of Xiaozong, the southern Song took to seaborne trade, previously dominated by Arabs and others. Chinese ships sailed east to Korea & Japan, and west to India, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. China imported raw materials and luxuries (rare woods, precious metals, gems, spices and ivory), and exported manufactured goods (silk and other cloths, ceramics, lacquerware, copper cash, dyes, books and stationery)¹⁵.

Although numerous naval battles took place before the 12th century, such as the large-scale Three Kingdoms Battle of Chibi in the year 208, it was during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) that the Chinese established a permanent, standing navy in 1132 AD¹⁶. At its height by the late 12th century there were 20 squadrons of some 52,000 marines, with the admiral’s headquarters based at Dinghai, while the main base remained closer to modern Shanghai in those days. The establishment of the permanent navy during the Song period came out of the need to defend against the Jurchens, who had overrun the northern half of China, and to escort merchant fleets entering the South East Pacific and Indian Ocean on long trade missions abroad. However, considering China was a country which was longtime menaced by land-based nomadic tribes such as the Xiongnu, Gokturks, Mongols and so on, the navy was always seen as an adjunct rather than an important military force. By the 15-16th centuries China’s canal system and internal economy were sufficiently developed to nullify the need for the Pacific fleet, which was scuttled when conservative Confuciusanists gained power in the court and began the policy of inward perfection. With the Opium Wars, which shook up the generals of the Qing Dynasty, Naval power was once again attached greater importance.

When the British fleet encountered the Chinese during the first Opium War, their officers noted the appearance of paddle-wheel boats among the Chinese fleet, which they took for a copy of the Western design. Paddle-wheel boats were actually developed by the Chinese independently in the 5th-6th centuries AD, only a century after their first surviving mention in Roman sources₁₇ though that method of propulsion had been abandoned for many centuries and only recently reintroduced before the war. Numerous other innovations were present in Chinese vessels during the Middle Ages that had not yet been adopted by the Western and Islamic worlds, some of which were documented by Marco Polo but which did not enter into other navies until the 18th century, when the British successfully incorporated them into ship designs. For example, medieval Chinese hulls were split into bulkhead sections so that a hull rupture only flooded a fraction of the ship and did not necessarily sink it.¹⁸

A significant naval battle was the Battle of Lake Poyang from August 30 to October 4 of the year 1363 AD, a battle which cemented the success of Zhu Yuanzhang in founding the Ming Dynasty. However, the Chinese fleet shrank tremendously after its military/tributary/exploratory functions in the early 15th century were deemed too expensive and it became primarily a police force on routes like the Grand Canals. Ships like the juggernauts of Zheng He’s “Treasure Fleet,” which dwarfed the largest Portuguese ships of the era by several times, were discontinued, and the junk became the predominant Chinese vessel until the country’s relatively recent (in terms of Chinese sailing history) naval revival.

In July 1683, Shi Lang used 300 warships and 20,000 troops to defeat the Zheng family, which ruled Taiwan, in a conflict known as the Battle of Penghu. The victory enabled Taiwan’s formal incorporation into the Qing polity, as a prefecture of Fujian Province. This was an historical first: Neither the Ming nor any previous dynasty had ever attempted to incorporate Taiwan directly in to official main-land administration.

Because of Shi’s aggressive efforts to bring Taiwan under main-land administration and his allegedly corrupt and overbearing post-war actions as an official vis-a-vis the island, naming China’s first aircraft carrier after him would send the wrong message for cross-Strait relations, whose stability Beijing seeks to encourage in order to facilitate reunification.

The dire necessity for an Aircraft Carrier

Contemporary history indicates that China won the Johnson South Reef Skirmish of 14 March 1988, but quickly retreated for fear of Vietnamese air strikes and Soviet retaliation. Rear Admiral Chen Weiwen (PLAN, ret.), commanded the PLAN’s three-frigate force in the conflict with initiative that was temporarily controversial but now widely acclaimed.

In a 2011 interview with the journal Modern Ships, Admiral Chen, who served as a commander in a 1988 conflict with Vietnamese forces in the Spratly Islands, emphasized the difference that an aircraft carrier could make. China had won the battle, but quickly withdrew:

“During the Spratly Sea Battle, the thing we feared most was not Vietnam’s surface vessels, but rather their aircraft. At that time, Vietnam had Su-22 fighter aircraft, which had a definite ability to attack ships. The Spratlys are very far from Sanya, and at that time we also lacked airfields in the Paracels. Flying from the nearest airfield, Lingshui [on Hainan Island], our aircraft only had loiter time of 4-5 minutes; in such a short time, they could not solve problems before they had to return, or they would run out of fuel. So we felt deeply that China must have an air-craft carrier: If during the Johnson South Reef Skirmish, we had our own [air] cover from a nearby air-craft carrier, we would simply not have had to fear Vietnam’s air force. Now that the Spratlys have airfields, it is much more convenient. If China’s aircraft carrier enters service relatively soon, and training is well-established, this will solve a major problem. We will seize air superiority; Vietnamese aircraft will not dare to take off.”

The idea of using deck aviation to address China’s sovereignty claims is hardly Admiral Chen’s alone. According to “Science of Campaigns,” an authoritative •volume written by scholars at China’s National Defense University, carriers can play a crucial role by providing air cover beyond the range of land-based air to support long-range amphibious landing operations against small islands: “Combat in the deep-sea island and reef region is relatively more independent, without support from the land-based force and air force. Under this situation, an aircraft carrier is even more important in winning victory in the campaign.¹⁹“

In the current scenario, for China, being able to project its military power further into the seas off its eastern and southern coasts, where it has various disputes with its neighbors over offshore islands, is clearly important; but having East Asia’s first aircraft carrier (like having a space program) is also simply seen as a way of showing that the country has arrived on the global stage. For the last three decades, PRC has been building its economic might. Now that it has nearly achieved those goals, it was time that it concentrated on its military muscles. The induction of an aircraft carrier is part of the same process.

In a recent interview, Senior Captain Li Jie, an expert at the PLAN’s strategic think tank, was quoted as stating that “China’s first aircraft carrier…will play an impor-tant role in China’s settlement of islands disputes and defense of its maritime rights and interests.²⁰

“The development of aircraft carriers is an important part of China’s national defence modernization, in particular its naval forces, and this aircraft carrier is an essential stepping stone toward its own more advanced aircraft carriers in the future,” China’s Rear Admiral Yang Yi commented. The carrier will be mostly used “for scientific research and training missions” so China could build “a more advanced aircraft carrier platform in the future”, he added²¹.

PLAN’s quest for Aircraft carriers

The Chinese carrier programme should not have come across as a surprise regionally. China’s aircraft carrier dream dated from the Kuomintang period in the 1940s and this was revived by the communist government in the 1980s. High-pro-file purchases of decommissioned Australian and Soviet medium-sized carriers in the mid-1980s and early-1990s exemplified Beijing’s intent.

Since 1985, China has acquired four retired aircraft carriers for study, the Australian HMAS Melbourne and the ex-Soviet carriers Minsk, Kiev and Varyag. Reports state that two 50,000-60,000 ton Type 089 air-craft carriers based on the Varyag, are due to be finished by 2020. Sukhoi SU-33s (navalized Flankers are the aircraft most likely to be flown from these carriers, but China is also developing its own multirole fighter, the Shenyang J-15²².

This meant that over these decades, regional governments have at least been partially desensitized to the Chinese carrier prospect.

Since the 1990s, even if it does not constitute the primary motivation behind Southeast Asia’s naval modernization, China’s aircraft carrier intent could have spurred regional acquisition of such `cheaper’ anticipatory countermeasures as long-range missiles, aerial maritime surveillance and submarines. These could have helped in mitigating the potential materialization of China’s aircraft carrier programme. In sum, Southeast Asia is generally pre-pared for such a contingency.

Varyag was only 30% completed and floating in Ukraine, when it was purchased through a private Macau tourist venture in 1998. After being towed to Dalian shipyard, the carrier has under-gone a long refit. Varyag had been stripped of any military equipment as well as her propulsion systems prior to being put up for sale. In 2007 there were news reports that she was being fitted out to enter service. On 10 August 2011, it was announced that the refurbishment of Varyag was complete, and that it was undergoing sea trials.

On December 14, 2011, Digital Globe, an American Satellite imag-ing company, announced that while scouring through pictures taken December 8th, they had discovered the retrofitted Varyag performing maneuvers, Digital Globe elaborated that their images capture the ship in the Yellow Sea where it per-formed for 5 days²³.

In September 2012, it was announced that this carrier is named Liaoning, after Liaoning Province of China. On 23 September 2012, Liaoning was handed over to the People’s Liberation Army Navy, and will enter formal service after being re-equipped.

Liaoning’s History

Originally laid down as the Admiral Kuznetsov class multirole, aircraft carrier Riga for the Soviet Navy in Nikolayev, Ukraine on December 6, 1985, she was launched on December 4, 1988 and renamed Varyag in 1990. The ship was purchased in 1998 by PRC and towed to Dalian Shipyard in north eastern China Design of the carrier was under-taken by the Nevskoye Planning and Design Bureau”. Construction had ceased by 1992, with the ship structurally complete but without electronics. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ownership was transferred to Ukraine; the ship was laid up, unmaintained, and then stripped. By early 1998, she lacked engines, a rudder, much of her operating systems, and was put up for auction. The hulk of the carrier was purchased from Ukraine in 1998, reportedly for use as an amusement park, and towed to China. She has since been refitted by the PLAN as an aircraft carrier or “scientific research, experiment and training.”

Displacement:	53,000 to 55,000 t (52,000 to 54,000 long tons) standard 66,000 to 67,500 t (65,000 to 66,400 long tons) full load
Length:	304.5 m (999 ft) o/a 270 m (890 ft) w/1
Beam:	75 m (246 ft) o/a 38 m (125 ft) w/
Draft:	10.5 m (34 ft)
Propulsion:	Steam turbines, 8 boilers, 4 shafts, 200,000 hp (150 MW) 2 x 50,000 hp (37 MW) turbines 9 x 2,011 hp (1,500 kW) turbogenerators 6 x 2,011 hp (1,500 kW) diesel generators 4 x fixed pitch propeller
Speed:	32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Range:	3,850 nautical miles (7,130 km; 4,430 mi) at 32 knots
Endurance	45 days
Complement	1,960 crew 626 air group 40 flag staff 3,857 rooms
Armament	After refit: • 3 x Type 1030 CIWS • 3 x FL-3000N (18 Cell Missile system) • 2 x ASW 12 tube rocket launchers As designed: • 8 x AK-630 AA guns (6×30 mm, 6,000 round/min/mount, 24,000 rounds) • 8 x CADS-N-1 Kashtan CIWS (each 2 x 30 mm Gatling AA plus 16 3K87 Kortik SAM) • 12 x P-700 Granit SSM • 18 x 8-cell 3K95 Kinzhal SAM VLS (192 vertical launch missiles; 1 missile per 3 seconds) • RBU-12000 UDAV-1 ASW rocket launchers (60 rockets)
Aircraft carried	Shenyang J-15 Changhe .Z-8 Ka-31 As designed: x 30 fixed wing aircraft[1] x 24 helicopters

The envisaged role of an Aircraft Carrier for PLAN

After entering service, the air-craft carrier will enhance the overall combat capability of the Chinese navy, and change its traditional naval warfare mindset. It is far more than just a large naval vessel, and its addition will bring fundamental, qualitative changes to PLAN’s operational style, organizational and troop structures, military theories, logistical support, and equipment.

A battle group built around an aircraft carrier can fight a three-dimensional battle at sea. Traditional large-and medium-sized warships such as cruisers and destroyers can perform outstandingly in anti-ship, air defence, and anti-submarine operations, but are unable to establish air supremacy. A carrier battle group will not only enhance PLAN’s combat and defence capabilities, but properly integrate PRC’s naval and air forces, contributing significantly to the exponential growth in China’s maritime combat capability along with the constant development of information technology. The aircraft carrier will also play a major role in consolidating China’s great power status. Its addition will bring a significant leap forward for China’s maritime forces, which include the navy, maritime law enforcement agencies, and air force. Comprehensive utilization and coordination of these forces and a carrier battle group capable of far seas operations will greatly enhance China’s defense in depth in the sea.

After 10 test sails, China’s first aircraft carrier will be in service soon. In fact, there have been all kinds of criticism and speculation about the aircraft carrier’s presumed role.

However domestically, most Chinese have welcomed the news that PRC’s first aircraft carrier will soon be in service. Although, some people think that it has done more harm than good spending so much money to refit an old aircraft carrier rather than building a new one, and some have expressed doubts about the combat effectiveness of a remodeled vessel.

Nevertheless, the development of aircraft carriers is an important part of China’s national defense modernization, in particular its naval forces, and this aircraft carrier is an essential stepping stone toward its own more advanced air-craft carriers in the future.

When all the major powers, and even some small and medium-sized countries, own aircraft carriers, it is natural that China should have its own aircraft carrier. To achieve China’s great cause of national rejuvenation, China should not only be a land power but also a sea power. While China is facing the threat of various external security challenges, the development of its air-craft carrier has become the com-mon aspiration and will of its people.

After it comes into service, the aircraft carrier will be mainly responsible for scientific research and training missions to accumulate the experience and technology necessary for China to build a more advanced aircraft carrier plat-form in the future, and to explore and gain practical experience for equipment development, personnel training and joint military operations within the navy and with other military services. In a sense, the aircraft carrier can be seen as an “experimental field” for China’s modernization of its navy.

China’s adherence to the path of peaceful development and its national defense and military strategy, which it claims is defensive in nature, will not change when the air-craft carrier comes into service. China not only is, and will continue to be, the powerhouse of continued regional and global economic growth and development; it is also an important force promoting regional stability and world peace.

China has vast sea areas and huge maritime rights and interests that it needs to protect, and China’s growing overseas interests require a strong navy to provide security guarantees. Regional stability and world peace also call for PLAN to play a more active and substantial role. China, which was once coerced by Western powers invading from the sea, can no longer ignore the importance of maritime defense. Its people think that the days of bullying it are over.

What’s in a name?

PLAN ship naming conventions suggest that ships are typically named after Chinese localities. The rare exceptions in which PLAN ships are named after individuals include training vessels (Deng Shichang and Zheng He) and research ships (Li Siquang), but not larger combat-operations-focused vessels.

Various names had been suggested for the carrier by a number of military figures, and reported by media outlets and internet rumors before the announcement of the name Liaoning. The first suggestion was to name it the carrier “Ship 048” as Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders reportedly took the decision for the country to develop an aircraft carrier in August 2004.

Other names which had been mooted included Sun Yetsen, after the father of republican China, and Mao Zedong after the PRC founder. One persistent rumor was that the carrier would be named Shi Lang, after the Chinese admiral who conquered Taiwan for the Qing Empire in the 17th century, which would be a clear signal of the PLA’s determination to see Taiwan unified with the mainland.

Liaoning, one of China’s three northeastern provinces, was chosen because it is where the carrier was based as it underwent its refit. Pilots who will serve aboard the carrier were also trained in Dalian²⁶. Since China’s first air-craft carrier will be its largest and most prominent warship, it would be logical to name it after one of the largest Chinese localities, particularly the one in which it was refitted—hence, “Liaoning.”

Reaction by PRC’s neighbours

Considering the prevalent tensions in the East and South China Seas, PRC’s induction of the Liaoning could provoke regional concerns in regard to whether China would use its newfound capability against competing claimants in those disputes. This might be especially so for comparatively weaker countries in Southeast Asia which have viewed China’s growing naval might over the past decade with at least some concern. This has caused widespread concern among the international community, with foreign media claiming China is put-ting more pressure on Japan amid the intensifying discord over the Diaoyu Islands. Some have even been speculating that the aircraft carrier will take part in military operations against Japan, and if so, this will have a huge impact on other countries that have maritime territorial disputes with China, resulting in a deteriorating external diplomatic and security environment for China.

The induction of China’s first air-craft carrier by PLAN should be of little cause for overreaction by Southeast Asian governments, from the strategic and operational perspectives. However, China’s carrier programme may potentially present a real source of concern by 2020 when the two planned indigenous carriers, according to PLAN sour’es, are expected to enter service in 2020 and 2022 respectively. The indigenous carrier is reported to be based on but larger than the Varyag design, implying a vastly more capable vessel displacing more than 70,000 tonnes full-load²⁷.

If Southeast Asians are worried that the new carrier could be used to assert Beijing’s maritime claims in the region, based on their recent standoff with the PRC, this worry could be exaggerated. PRC has been relying increasingly on lightly-equipped civilian law-enforcement vessels for such functions instead of PLAN warships and this trend is projected to continue as China rap-idly builds up such capacities.

Building a Carrier Battle Group (CBG)

Most naval analysts opine that building a full-fledged carrier capability takes time. The wherewithal for the carrier force is not confined to possessing a single aircraft carrier but it involves providing sup-porting elements such as escorting warships and replenishment vessels, not to mention a fully-developed carrier-borne aviation complement, all of which constitute a typical carrier battle group (CBG). A CBG is still not considered a fully-operational fighting force until the necessary doctrine and operational and technical knowhow of carrier operations are acquired, diffused and mustered throughout the entire CBG. The time taken for a whole CBG to train to operate together as one cohesive fighting force can be considerably lengthy. Getting into the carrier business takes time; a whole range of skills has to be learnt; and carriers have to operate with other ships, requiring a new mindset across the navy as a whole. It could be a steep learning curve, but China is moving ahead steadily, taking the first steps on the path to having a fully-fledged carrier force. But China does not yet have a fleet of aircraft or pilots ready for carrier operations. So the Liaoning will be used to test and train them, a task that will probably take several years.

With US and Indian aircraft carriers lurking in the South China Sea, Beijing has specifically declared that the intended role for the carrier is to help safeguard China’s coastline and keep its sea lines of communication open. The Liaoning has also been portrayed as a kind of test platform for the future development of the five domestically built Chinese carriers. Liaoning will be used to master the technology for more advanced car-riers and used to train in how to operate such a craft in a battle group and with vessels from other nation’s navies.

Attention must be drawn towards Beijing’s overall attempts to build up its CBG capacity. There was ample evidence of such intent through the recent induction and construction of new destroyers optimized for fleet air defence coverage, conceivably with CBG air defence in mind. This means that China is seriously bent on pursuing a long-term carrier capability which is more than just a prestige pet project.

With US and Indian aircraft carriers lurking in the South China Sea, Beijing has specifically declared that the intended role for the carrier is to help safeguard China’s coastline and keep its sea lines of communication open. The Liaoning has also been portrayed as a kind of test platform for the future development of the five domestically built Chinese carriers. Liaoning will be used to master the technology for more advanced car-riers and used to train in how to operate such a craft in a battle group and with vessels from other nation’s navies. Whatever its ramifi-cations on China’s global status, the carrier embodies huge symbol-ism for China’s political and military leaders as a totem of its rise from weakness to strength. PLAN’s acceptance of the Liaoning is the first step in a long journey; it is a sojourn that will take place in full view of the world, and one that will ultimately take Beijing to a new place as a great sea power.

The debate over the efficacy of maintaining Carrier Battle Groups

In an age where defence pundits are denouncing maintaining aircraft carriers, China builds its case for the acquisition of carriers on the logic that it allows a nation to take air power around the globe without having to worry about countries in between who might refuse the use of ground bases or airspace. The current debate is for building and maintaining smaller carriers. The US Nimitz Class for example costs US Dollars 15 billion to build. Some observers see the emphasis on launching a massive, slow-moving aircraft carrier in a time of smart bombs and unmanned drones as a retrograde step in itself.

In May 1912, the first plane took off from a moving warship, HMS Hibernia, temporarily adapted for the purpose. The idea of dedicated floating platforms had been mooted in 1909, but it wasn’t until 1918 that HMS Argus became the first proper carrier.

Today, ownership of a carrier for fixed-wing aircraft admits a nation to an elite club, but the US has more than everyone else in the world put together.

China is a late entrant into the aircraft carrier club, so far the countries wielding this element of power projection comprise²⁸:

US	Twenty (including amphibious assault Ships equipped with aircraft)
UK	Two
India	Two
Japan	Two (equipped with Helicopters only)
Italy	Two
Spain	Two
France	One
Russia	One
Brazil	One
Thailand	One
South Korea	One (Equipped with Helicopters Only)

There is an additional consideration. In confined littorals, large warships could be particularly vulnerable to well-concealed asymmetric countermeasures, exploiting local geography, such as sub-marines and long-range missiles. The encounters between US Navy carriers and PLAN submarines in 1994 and 2006 as well as the successful attack on the Israeli Navy corvette INS Hanit in 2006 by a Hezbollah shore-based anti-ship missile highlight such vulnerability.

China’s Responsibilities as a Naval power

With growing power, there is a tendency for muscle flexing. China has been treading carefully to portray that it has no hegemonic designs. So far it has asserted that it will never pursue a “gunboat policy” and bully weaker countries. In the face of a rising China in economic, political, cultural and military strength, it is inevitable that some countries will be suspicious about and misunderstand China’s intentions. In order to counterbalance the theory that its new aircraft carrier is a threat, China must not only continue to make clear its strategies and policies, it must also take practical actions to convince the world that with the development of China’s military strength, especially the strengthening of its overseas projection capability, it will enhance its role as a defender of regional stability and world peace.

At present, China’s national security faces complex, diverse challenges, and to safeguard its national security and maintain a favorable external environment is the premise for China to achieve its strategic goal of building an all-round well-off society.

In dealing with the territorial and maritime rights disputes with some neighboring countries, China has remained committed to solving the problems through diplomatic channels and negotiations, and opposes the use of force or threat of force. China’s sincerity is well known and should not be doubted.

Study of China’s survival instincts indicates that it will resolutely safe-guard its sovereignty and national dignity. It’s leaders assert that they stand for peace, but are not afraid of any threats or intimidation. China should continue to modernize its military forces step by step, including the building of aircraft carriers. When China has a more balanced and powerful navy, the regional situation will be more stable as various forces that threaten regional peace will no longer dare to act rashly. China’s military forces, especially its powerful naval forces, can provide the international community more “public security products” that are enough to stop the impulse of any country to attempt military adventures. Maintaining regional stability and world peace needs not only the development of China’s military might, but also increased cooperation with other countries. China will continue to cooperate with all peace-loving countries and forces to work together for regional stability and world peace.

President Hu Jintao, also chairman of the commission that controls the military, presided over the ceremony at the ship’s home port of Dalian, along with Premier Wen Jiabao and top generals. Hu “fully affirmed” the efforts of those working on the ship and called on them to complete all remaining tasks according to the highest standard, the Defense Ministry said.

Conclusion

Whatever its practical effects on China’s global status, the carrier embodies huge symbolism for China’s political and military leaders as a totem of their country’s rise from weakness to strength, according to Andrew S. Erickson, a China naval specialist at the U.S. Naval War College.

“While (Chinese navy) acceptance of this ‘starter carrier’ is the first step in a long journey, it is a journey that will take place in full view of the world, and one that will ultimately take Beijing to a new place as a great sea power,” Erickson wrote on his blog.

The carrier’s political importance was highlighted in Wen’s remarks to the ceremony, in which he said it would “arouse national pride and patriotic passion.”

“This has mighty and deep significance for the opening of a new facet in our enterprise of social-ism with Chinese characteristics,” he reiterated.♦

End Notes