By Trefor Moss
There’s been much speculation about the implications of China’s first aircraft carrier. The Diplomat answers some of the key questions.
When is an aircraft carrier not an aircraft carrier? The answer could be: when it is Chinese.
The first aircraft carrier in the history of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN’s), which began sea trials earlier this week and churned up no shortage of media conjecture as it got underway, has to be understood on two different levels: the symbolic and the purposive.
Symbolically, the launching of the carrier is another instalment in the narrative of China’s achievement of great-power status. It belongs in the same bracket as the Three Gorges Dam, the Qingdao-Haiwan sea bridge and high-speed rail: mega-projects that demonstrate China’s technological prowess and boundless capacity to accomplish whatever it sets its mind to (even if, before too long, the dams crack and the trains crash).
The carrier’s military symbolism is also immensely powerful. In truth, the PLA’s most successful modernisation programmes haven’t been conventional platforms like warships so much as asymmetric weapons – systems that aim to subvert the enemy’s strengths rather than counter them with like-for-like solutions. Anti-ship ballistic missiles, anti-satellite systems and cyber warfare all fit into this category. Aircraft carriers most certainly don’t. However, the general public – not to mention the mainstream media and presumably many politicians, including Chinese ones – have no idea what asymmetric weapons are; they are esoteric concepts that don’t capture the imagination. Aircraft carriers on the other hand, just like the flashy new fighter jet that China debuted in January, are part of the widely understood lexicon of hard power. People appreciate that a country with an aircraft carrier is part of an elite and powerful club – and that’s precisely the message that the Chinese government wants the carrier to convey both to its domestic and foreign audiences. It’s a comprehensible metaphor for China’s arrival, and something to keep the nationalists sweet.
The ship has great economic symbolism as well. Just as China was launching its carrier, the United States was announcing that it was trimming the size of its carrier fleet in order to save money. It was the perfect moment for the Xinhua news agency to chide has-been America for spending reckless amounts on defence so that it could ‘meddle’ internationally while ‘paying no heed to whether the economy can support this.’ The message was that only China, sitting pretty atop $2 trillion in reserves, now has the fiscal right to build these military luxuries.
However, the practical purpose of China’s aircraft carrier programme is more open to interpretation. Is the carrier a symbol, and nothing more? Or is the refurbished ex-Soviet vessel also the thin end of a wedge that will culminate in a bona fide Chinese carrier capability, with all the security implications that that entails? With many countries in the Asia-Pacific looking on with varying degrees of concern, there are important questions that need to be addressed:
What is China’s first carrier actually capable of?
China’s own declaration that the ship is ‘obsolete’ and ‘for training purposes’ is probably fairly accurate. Naval analysts Andrew Erickson and Gabriel Collins have described the ex-Varyag – widely reported to have been renamed Shi Lang – as a ‘starter carrier,’ and it’s hard to imagine it ever being used as a weapon of war. This is a ship with training wheels for a navy that has never operated a carrier before. The first major milestone, after confirming that the ship itself functions, will be equipping the carrier with its air arm of naval J-15 fighters, which are themselves unproven and still in development. Dean Cheng, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, estimates that the PLAN could achieve this objective within a six to 18-month timeframe. But training pilots to fly off carriers will be a long and costly exercise, he says. ‘This will inevitably involve failures, they will lose pilots,’ Cheng warns. ‘How will they handle that and what will be the political ramifications?’
Photo Credit: US Navy
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THE PR O CC
This is why they call the PRC, COPY CHINA or COUNTERFEIT CHINA
Its the best kept open secret
Frank
Learning from other people is the best way to progress.
Learn from others and beat them in their games is what Chinese do the best.
rainday
Many people are still thinking they are in the 80s not 2011 when they are commenting on China’s civil and military build out.
People do get with the program and should not kept holding on to yesterday!!!
rainday
The china’s neighbors are up against U.S. advance technologies that are build in China now with help from all those returning Chinese-American engineers, scientists, researchers, former U.S. military personals.
It is not by accident that all the sudden that China is building all those U.S. like military hardwares.
rainday
The returning American-Chinese researchers, scientists and engineers sure have a lot of building modern weapons experience because they were the same persons that had helped to build most if not all U.S. advanced weapons (i.e. f22, f35, newest destroyers, aircraft carriers, submarines, apache helicopters, etc.).
TSMC is the world top IC manufacturer.
Most of all, China has (2 trillions U.S. dollars) money to build out many civil and military projects.
Many people are still they are in the 80s not 2011.
Please do get with the time, people!!!
Cyrus
China is still Communist as in the 80’s. So we are still treating China as a Communist. China and Philippines has enjoyed a cordial ties for centuries there is no ill intent on both countries. Now China is flexing its Military Muscles against the Philippines and trying to bully us to abandon our Sovereignty. That is unacceptable and will never be.
Frank
Philippines can build a carrier too if you have enough brain power.
Cyrus
Brain power? We have brains, how then can the first US General to die in a foreign country happen in the Philippines? Simple we have brains the General has not.
Frank
You have brains ???
The US General was not fighting for you. He was fighting to enslave you.
You need s brain to understand that.
Cyrus
Obviously I have, though I could not say the same for you.
The First AMERICAN GENERAL to die in FOREIGN Soil was killed by Filipino’s. So of course he did not die for us. He wanted to kills us for krisakes. So review your history and use your brains you might not appear as stupid as you already appear with your brainless comments.
Frank
If you have brain, build an aircraft carrier yourself.
FighterGuru
When was it ever stated that the US is cutting the carrier fleet due to costs? We’re disbanding a CVBG cause the Carrier at the heart of the CVBG is due to undergo a 5 year refueling & refit, not cutting the fleet. Once complete, the CVBG will be reformed. And then there’s the Enterprise, which is due to Decom anyway. That’s why we’re building the Gerald Ford-class(really bad name BTW), to replace the Enterprise and eventually the Nimitzs. Whoever started the “We’re cutting carrier due to costs!” rumor really needs to read the USN’s reports on these things.
Anywho, on to statements & topics here in the comment section…
First off, let me just say that I have no issues with China or its carrier program. What I do have issues with is the Government of the PRC, a Govt. who only managed to outlast the USSR cause the USA decided it wanted cheap labor for its goods, and threw out the guidelines it had set down when US-PRC trade relations really began. Without the US funding the PRC through unbalanced trade, the PRC would have fallen long ago and the carrier issue would be a non-starter.
Frankly, there’s a whole mess of problems & issues I have that stems from the fact that China is ruled by Communists, too many I can’t figure out how to put it all down without it being gibberish…
Though I do have 1 question, what is the legal backing of China’s claim to the South China Sea other than that they a few hundred years ago ruled that area? It’s like Italy saying “Hey! We’re the successor state to Rome, we rule the entire Mediterranean Sea, so give us your islands.”.
Cyrus
You have a point there or telling turkey to leave Constantinople because it belonged to the Byzantine Empire and they just conquered it from them. Also Iran telling all other Arab States to leave since Most of their territories were Persian Empire during the Achaemenid Dynasty.
Frank
“US behaviour in the Philippines during the time it occupied the country was nefarious not just because of the crude use of force by the invading colonial power, but also because of the clever manipulation and exploitation of symbols, language, relationships and ideology”
And yet, you love USA.
Cyrus
Of course, it is given that any wars would be bloody. Who said Colonization is for the benefit of the Colonized? Never happened.
I’m just being a pragmatist. We were colonized by Spain, Britain occupied the Capital for two years, Americans for almost 5 decades and Japanese for a few years. Of them all the Americans were the least brutal to say the least. They allow us to be relatively free when the Civilian Government took over with Taft as Chairman. They taught us English (which the Spain never taught us Spanish), gave us a public school system gave us a relatively free government. That is so much unlike what Spain did and we were thankful for that. If you are a colonized country then leniency is the least you could expect though we received better. Filipino’s granted US Citizenship something we always craved during the Spanish.
To put it simply, they made mistakes in the Philippines but the good they did to the Filipino’s far outweighs their wrongs. If we could even forgive Spain for 300+ years of slavery how much more the Americans? When their rule benefited us way more than 300+ years of Spanish rule.
Alex
How can you dare comment about how the United States treated people in the Philippines during its colonization of the Philippines , when China has killed hundreds even thousand of Tibetans and till this day Colonizes the people of Tibet against their will .
the answer
@Duke Chan
It can be sunk easily by Vietnam?
woo—how scary…. Vietnam? the No.1 powerful navy country in the world?
You must be so right, China is currently building two other carriers in Shanghai. I guess all three of them must be symbolic too.
Cyrus
What it is saying is that since China has not put an effort to the Anti Submarine capabilities that a submarine could sink the Varyag.
Frank
Vietnam does not have subs.
Filipino do not have subs.
Cyrus
Viets have Subs Filipino’s doesn’t have any. That’s a fact. So we are getting subs in the near future, we are just in the process of studying it’s usage and how to train our Naval Personnel.
saigon
Yes! Vietnam have subs, but they don’t know how to use it, just for looking good
So the Chinese won’t pick on them. The chinese learn their lession from the past,
When the Vietnam general Tran Hung Dao vanishes the whole China navy fleet in Bach Dang River. You guy know nothing about the Vietnamese and Chinese history.
Frank
The terrain of the norther with rivers and mountains is the main defense of Vietnam.
However, the south part of Vietnam is defenseless.
Just take a look at how fast the Viet Com to conquer the South in 1970s.
Saigon
Vietnam is the only country in the world can take on the Chinese. We did it than and we can do it now. Whose ever declare war on Vietnam it will be a tough one.
They can defeat Vietnam within one month, but for the next thousand year the vietnamese never let them live in peace. Don’t forget Combodia & Lao is the backbone of the Vietnamese retreat. No body in the world can fight in the jungle
like the Vietnamese.
Ken
Ater reading the comments of others, two things come to mind! First, is the Ukraine or Russia helping to train the Chinese in operating a carrier? Second, do they plans for building more carriers in the near future? We know they have the money for it. We also know ex-Russins military and scientist will train foriegn countries or Money! Any one have any info on these two points? I’m curious and have not found any thing about it on internet,but I am not good at searching or info!
zrn2006
Yes, We are building other two carriers in Shanghai now. They will be done soon.
Saigon
Big deal about the carriers, it only takes four man crews on the PT boat with antiship missle to sink it, how many time the Vietnamese Navy tell the Chinese war ship to leave the Vietnamese water, before we sink it?