China: Next Aircraft Carriers - Machtres Fighters

 China’s decision in mid-December 2008 to dispatch a small People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) task force of two destroyers to police against Somalia’s pirates has been greeted as a hopeful sign that China may use its growing naval capabilities positively; one Chinese commentator said it “shows the world that China is a large responsible nation.”  Nevertheless, China struck a nationalist tone to its participation, refusing to join the American-led multinational naval Task Force 151, though engaging in an uneven information exchange with the U.S. side.  A less benign demonstration was a far less noted December 9, 2008 incident in the East China Sea, in which two Chinese Marine Surveillance Agency ships apparently made use of the PLA’s increasingly capable space and electronic information capabilities, to calculate the precise moment when Japanese Coast Guard ships would not be present to thwart China’s latest effort to assert its sovereignty over the disputed Senkaku Islands.

It was against this backdrop of confrontation and potential cooperation, in late 2008 and early 2009, that several Chinese and other sources revealed new information regarding China’s longstanding ambition to build aircraft carriers, which updates previous IASC work.  It should be noted that this new information did not come from official PRC government statements or press releases, but from unattributed statements by Chinese sources to foreign or Hong Kong Chinese media, and from reports in the international defense press. As such this data is not definitive and there remains plenty of room for continued speculation.  China’s refusal to provide definitive data about major defense programs, especially future programs, is consistent with longstanding People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attitudes toward military transparency.  The latest bi-annual Chinese Defense White Paper released on January 20, 2009, makes no reference to China’s plans to build aircraft carriers.  

But these recent revelations constitute some progress nonetheless, which apparently builds upon a new official stance of defending China’s intention to build aircraft carriers to visitors, and now publically, marking a significant change from the previous longstanding policy of denying such intentions.  For example, in mid-November 2008 Major General Qian Lihua, Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Chinese Ministry of Defense, told the Financial Times:

“The navy of any great power...has the dream to have one or more aircraft carriers…The question is not whether you have an aircraft carrier, but what you do with your aircraft carrier….Navies of great powers with more than 10 aircraft carrier battle groups with strategic military objectives have a different purpose from countries with only one or two carriers used for offshore defence…Even if one day we have an aircraft carrier, unlike another country, we will not use it to pursue global deployment or global reach.”

This promotion of aircraft carrier ambitions continued at China’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC) session in early March 2009.  While attending the NPC session, PLA Navy East Sea Fleet Commander Admiral Xu Hongmeng was quoted saying, "China really needs a carrier. Both technologically and economically, China already has the capacity to build a carrier…China will very soon have its own aircraft carrier." China Daily quoted former PLA Navy political commissar Admiral Hu Yanlin saying, "Building aircraft carriers is a symbol of an important nation. It is very necessary…China has the capability to build aircraft carriers, and should do so.”

New PLAN Carrier Data Points

On December 31, 2008 Japan’s Asahi Shimbun cited Chinese “military and shipbuilding sources” saying that in 2009 the PLA will start building the first of two 50,000-60,000 ton aircraft carriers expected to be launched by 2015.  They would be built in the new Shanghai shipyard on Changxingdao Island. These would apparently be in addition to the ex-Soviet/Ukrainian carrier Varyag now undergoing reconstruction and refit in Dalian Harbor. Then on January 2, 2009 Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) cited a “military source” which disclosed the PLA “may build up to four medium-sized aircraft carriers by 2020.”  This source noted they would be 65,000 ton carriers similar to the Varyag. Not to be outdone, on February 13 Asahi cites a “Chinese military source” noting that the later two carriers, also about 60,000 tons and to be produced around 2020, would be nuclear powered, based on an earlier unbuilt Russian nuclear carrier Ulyanovsk.

While their details on carriers appear to track, SCMP and Asahi differ in their analysis for the purpose of China’s carrier buildup.  The SCMP quotes one Chinese source saying that “China would not be overambitious and aim for super-aircraft carriers like America's, because the PLA had no intention of becoming a global force like the United States or Russian navies.” Both articles noted that China was motivated by a growing need to protect claimed maritime territories in the South China Sea and to secure resource routes to the Middle East, with the SCMP article stating bluntly, “We plan to build four battle groups simply because we need an all-weather navy force to safeguard our energy routes on the high seas as well as to protect our territorial waters in the South China Sea.”  However, in its February 13 article the usually liberal Asahi offers a more ominous rationale:
“The Chinese military's future goal is to secure naval supremacy in the western Pacific waters inside the second line of defense from the Japanese archipelago to Guam Island and Indonesia. After that, the Chinese military will vie with the U.S. naval forces in the Indian Ocean and in the entire Pacific region.”