The other group of admirals, who appear to be getting their way, want to build aircraft carriers. These would be used to control distant waters, like the long sea routes that bring China raw materials (especially oil) and allow exports to reach world markets. The most critical route passes through the Indian Ocean, on the way to the Persian Gulf and Africa. China and India have not always been on the best of terms, and a fleet of carriers is seen as the only way of confronting India with something short of nuclear weapons.
The Chinese would have to send their carrier battle groups a long way to challenge India, along with surface ships and subs to protect shipping, but Chinas doesn't have to do more than reach rough parity in the Indian Ocean to beat the Indian navy, in my opinion. Why? Because Chinese naval forces deployed south of India would tend to force Indian naval forces northward. And if Indian forces are pushed north, they become vulnerable to Chinese land-based ballistic missiles used in any anti-ship role. Long viewed as a threat to our carriers, like China's general view of their naval power, India is likely the intended near-term target for such missiles:
Might not a rain of anti-ship ballistic missiles nullify India's carrier fleet and smash up even their larger surface combatants, keeping China's line of supply largely unmolested?
We may be nervous about the potential of the DF-21 to be a carrier killer, but the Indians should be sweating bullets over this prospect. For India, it could be a fleet killer.
India needs allies and capabilities to keep the Chinese fleet away from the Indian Ocean, or at least to attrite the Chinese on the way so that whatever reaches India's neighborhood can't exploit China's successful use of anti-ship ballistic missiles to smash the largest assets of the Indian fleet.
