China remains the only major global power without aircraft carriers in its fleet. For years, military leaders have weighed the pride that such vessels would bring the nation with the costs and complexity of operating the giant ships, continually postponing a decision. But now public sentiment is running strongly in favor of launching a program to build aircraft carriers, and some military experts say construction may be inevitable.
"Actually it has almost been decided that the Chinese navy will build carriers," said Xu Guangyu, an analyst and the director of the government-backed China Arms Control and Disarmament Association.
China's military has grown at double-digit rates for nearly two decades and now wields supersonic missiles and nuclear submarines. When it comes to aircraft carriers, though, it's not so much military leaders voicing an operational need as an impatient public demanding construction, experts said.
"There's a feeling among the Chinese public that their nation is a great power, and great powers have aircraft carriers," said Andrew S. Erickson, a civilian scholar at the China Maritime Studies Institute of the Naval War College in Rhode Island. "We've seen grass-roots campaigns that say, 'Everyone contribute some money so we can have an aircraft carrier.' "
The article notes that the Chinese have the smaller Kiev and Minsk plus the larger Varyag. The first two are floating theme parks for tourists.
Years ago, I read that China was buildng carriers and might have one battle group in service by 2008. I've read other reports of massive Chinese shipbuilding that don't seem to have panned out in the years since they were published.
So, China's naval power is expanding. And China will one day have actual carriers. But the Chinese appear in no hurry to build carriers and a blue water navy.
One reason is that China doesn't need carriers for their near-term mission of conquering Taiwan.
Second, until China has Taiwan, trying to deploy aircraft carriers out to sea runs the risk of having to run a gauntlet leaving and entering port. Heck, even with Taiwan in Chinese hands, any bases in enemy hands from Vietnam to the Philippines to Guam to Okinawa/Japan and Sourth Korea will still make moving a carrier away from China's shores difficult for Peking.
So I'm not terribly worried about Chinese plans to build conventional carriers.
I'd watch those three existing carriers closely. Surely, the Chinese have studied them (and the former Australian carrier Melbourne before breaking her up) enough for their long-range goal of having carriers for prestige and limited power projection.
But given that I think that our carriers will be increasingly obsolete should we have to fight an enemy with networked anti-ship missiles and shore-based aircraft, how much of a chance would Chinese carriers have against our missile-rich surface ship and submarines, aircraft carriers, and shore-based aircraft networked with our superior surveillance capabilities? Their carriers would have a short, glorious sail like the Bismarck sortie in World War II, if you ask me.
In the short run, those three nonoperational Chinese carriers could serve a very valuable function in an invasion of Taiwan if they were prepared as mobile offshore bases (MOBs):
If China is truly interested in conquering Taiwan in the near future, might not the Varyag be useful as a staging base--a cheap MOB--that could be towed close to Taiwan? Load it with troops, SAMs, supplies, and helicopters, and tow it close to Taiwan where it will ferry troops to the beachheads? Ship in troops to the floating base using civilian vessels and then load them on military helicopters or smaller amphibious warfare vessels based on the jury-rigged MOB and get them ashore.
A cheap, made-in-China MOB could be one of many items that slip past our radar as we look for conventional amphibious warfare developments. The Varyag may be in play for a large Chinese throw of the dice, but it probably won't be a floating casino that emerges from Dalian.
The other two hulls are still there, too. If the Chinese start moving these ships to make room for Olympic-related shipping, I'd keep a very close watch on them.
The Taiwan Strait Vault might be the only Olympics event China is interested in winning.
