Ostensible reasons for consternation over the 'buildup' of Chinese naval carriers
wchao37  Updated: 2004-04-07 09:06

There are two pieces of defense-related news emanating from Russia and China that have been raising eyebrows and causing serious consternation within the Pentagon lately.

One concerns the Russian announcement that they have achieved a technological breakthrough in end-stage rocket maneuverability, a feat that will shatter the halo of invincibility over America's multi-billion-dollar NMD or TMD defense systems which depend on their capability to accurately pinpoint the trajectories of incoming missiles during their descent stage.

The other concerns reports by 'eyewitnesses' of the imminent completion of aircraft carriers in Shanghai naval dockyards.

We'll focus our attention on the latter in this discussion since these latest carrier rumors have ostensibly caught the attention of America's frenetic political spectrum from left to right and is of immediate relevance in the event of a cross-straits conflict.

The feverish tension in the aftermath of the apparently-faked Taiwan election - an analogous situation of the Florida election four years ago in terms of its razor-thin difference in the alleged vote-counts -- has catapulted this question to the forefront: "Is a Chinese technical surprise in naval technological feat just around the corner?"

For this we have to retrace our steps and take a look at the developmental history of the PLAN to see if such build-up is probable.

The modern People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is in many ways the brainchild of China's retired General Liu Huaqing, who had advocated for China to develop a green (shallow)-water active defense capability to be followed by a blue (deep)-water one later as expansions in foreign trade makes China's global mercantilist projections a necessity.

The former would help in enforcing China's sovereignty in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, while the latter will be capable of projecting Chinese naval power into the far blue yonder of the Pacific and Indian oceans.

The latest report of a 'green-water carrier' with three ships being built in Shanghai dockyards as aforementioned is interesting because it carries much detail about the boilers, radar, etc. from available literature in cyberspace.
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One (People's Daily) website source carries 'eyewitness reports' of three dockyards at Shanghai, each with carrier construction under way. It quoted from an article in a Russian newspaper, "The Independent," about 'China's future route to maritime dominance.' There are also reports from FAS (the Federation of American Scientists) an American arms-control advocacy group, to the same effect.

The FAS report quotes an obscure 'article published in China' about the soon-to-be-completed 48,000-ton carrier named 'Project 9935' this year. Three such carriers allegedly could be operational within four years at the earliest.

Still, I have long suspected that a green water carrier is not very likely at this stage of the game. Rumors surrounding the impending construction of carriers have been rampant since at least the 60's and each time they have turned out to be exactly that - a rumor. A green-water carrier would be too attractive a target for American forces in case of a cross-straits war. Why would China undergo such an expensive undertaking to build something of such momentous symbolic significance only to become a relatively easy surface target for the American navy?

If our goal is to protect our sovereignty over Taiwan -- and so far everything being built, including destroyers, subs and frigates, makes sense (remember last year there was a report of a destroyer equipped with Aegis-like radar capability being built in a Shanghai dockyard. They even have pictures shown on a website) -- then adding a green-water carrier group at this time simply does not make sense.

There is a saying in Chinese, "Yuan sui jiu bu liao jin huo," or "distant water does not help in putting out nearby fires." If Chen declares independence in two years, what is a green-water capability in 2008 going to do for us?

Granted that there have been reports of China's spasmodic studies of Western and Russian carrier technology, such report still fail to confirm the existence of a plan for a green-water carrier.

The acquisition of foreign carriers has been in the news throughout the years.

In 1985, China bought the 15,000-ton HMAS Melbourne from Australia for scrap, with which the Chinese reportedly used its steam-catapult-equipped flight deck for flight training in a Dongbei naval center.

Seven years later the PLAN showed interest in buying the 65,000-tonne carrier Varyag from Ukraine, which the new nation had inherited in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's political disintegration. The ship eventually ended up in a naval yard in the northern port of Dalian two years ago after fetching a price three times its value as scrap at 20M USD.

That's why for some reason I tend to believe that all this talk of Chinese shipbuilding activities in recent weeks is used to justify the sale of weapons to Taiwan like the sale of the long-range radar system proposed by the Pentagon.

The best defense is always offense - even in a propaganda war about a multi-billion-dollar long-range radar system, the sale of which by the Pentagon to Taiwan has invited ferocious indignation from the entire Chinese nation.

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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