Hong Kong - China launched its first domestically built aircraft
carrier, burnishing President Xi Jinping’s credentials as commander-in-chief
ahead of a Communist Party leadership reshuffle this year.
The warship was floated at a shipyard in the north-eastern
port of Dalian in a ceremony attended by General Fan Changlong, second only to
Xi on the Central Military Commission, according to a statement on the Ministry
of National Defense’s website. A bottle of champagne was ceremonially smashed
on the vessel’s bow before the ship was escorted from dry dock, the ministry
said.
The aircraft carrier program lies at the heart of China’s
effort to build a “ blue water” navy capable of projecting power beyond the
country’s coast and protecting increasingly far-flung interests. Xi has made
overhauling and modernising the People’s Liberation Army a centrepiece of his
agenda since taking power in 2012.
The aircraft carrier, the second in an estimated fleet of as
many as six such ships, was based on the design of the Liaoning, a Soviet
vessel China bought from Ukraine, refitted and put to sea almost six years ago.
Launching the carrier allows Xi to tout an historic
milestone before he presides over the ruling party’s twice-a-decade congress,
in which roughly half of its Central Committee is expected to be replaced.
“China has this ambitious goal of acquiring more aircraft
carriers,” said Andrew Scobell, a senior political scientist at RAND Corporation who
has written about China’s aircraft carrier program for the US Naval War
College Review. “The program has different drivers, but the one that cannot be
discounted is prestige and status for Chinese leaders.”
‘Key juncture’
The new carrier, known for now as Type 001A, is being built
by the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation Construction of a third is
already underway by China State Shipbuilding Corporation at the Jiangnan shipyard
near Shanghai. Defence analysts at military-affiliated research groups have
told state media that the country needs at least three more.
“Launching is a key juncture of aircraft-carrier building
and marks a significant achievement for our country’s home-built and
designed carrier,” the defence ministry said. The carrier will still
require years of fitting, testing and sea trials.
Nonetheless, China Shipbuilding Industry Co., the Type
001A builder’s listed unit, fell as much as 4.6 percent in Shanghai trading on
Wednesday, the most since January. On Tuesday, the company reported full-year
profit of 698 million yuan ($101 million), compared with analysts’ estimates of
663 million yuan.
Limited capabilities
The launch came as the region’s long-dominant naval power,
the US, deployed a strike group led by the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson to
the Western Pacific in response to tensions around North Korea’s nuclear
weapons program. China’s first two carriers, limited by their ski-jump decks,
diesel propulsion systems and limited overseas bases, pose little challenge to
the US’s super carriers.
While Liaoning’s political commissar in November declared
the carrier “combat ready,” the PLA Navy has largely used it for training. The
carriers were expected to be limited to forays beyond the so-called First
Island Chain, Scobell said, using the term for the string of archipelagos that
stretches from Japan, past Taiwan to the Philippines all US security partners.
The new carrier has more advanced weapons systems than the
Liaoning, said Ni Lexiong, director of the Shanghai University of
Political Science and Law’s Sea Power and Defense Policy Research Institute.
The ship will accommodate more J-15 fighter jets, carry China’s most advanced
S-band radar and feature four batteries of HQ-10 short-range air-defense
missiles, Ni said.
“It signals the PLAN’s growing capabilities, which were
achieved at a fast pace,” Ni said.
Jumps, jets
The Liaoning displaces a maximum of about 60 000 tons. The
Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan, by comparison, displaces 97 000 tons while the
Carl Vinson displaces about 103 000 tons.
The first two Chinese carriers are hampered by the lack of
steam catapults launching systems used by the US, according to Richard
Bitzinger, coordinator of the military transformations program at the S
Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
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That means the J-15s
must carry more fuel and limit ordnance loads. China may attempt to install a
steam catapult system on its third carrier.
Scobell said it might be decades before China possesses
multiple large aircraft carriers and becomes adept at operating them. By then,
more sophisticated “carrier-killer” missiles and other new systems to deny
them access to certain waters may make them less relevant.
“Some of my colleagues in Washington say: China, build all
the carriers you want,” Scobell said. “It’s going to spend a lot of money, a
lot of effort, but to what end?”