Sound Bites

China is a big country and we have quite a large number of ships, but they are only small ships. This is not commensurate with the status of a country like China.

Chen Bingde, chief of the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department

They (the Chinese navy) have the support ships. They have in the Varyag (a workable training platform if not a fully operational aircraft carrier), and therefore it is now merely a question of when China will have a fully functioning aircraft carrier flotilla.