China recently declared it intends to field modern navy including aircraft carriers. In Shanghai, shipyard employees claim that the Chinese navy has ordered two 60,000 ton aircraft carriers with completion scheduled for 2015.
In addition, the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti states that industry sources say that China is negotiating the purchase of Sukhoi’s SU-33 carrier-based fighter from Ukraine and has sought 12 production units from Russia.
In China, the Ministry of National Defense representative, Col. Huang Xueping, made several comments on the gathering reports of a Chinese aircraft carrier
“Aircraft carriers are a symbol of a country’s overall national strength and the competitiveness of its naval force. China has a large sea territory. It is the sacred responsibility of the armed forces to defend our sea territory and to uphold our maritime sovereignty and rights and interests,” said Huang.
The primary concern is that the Chinese navy may be beginning an era of building to challenge the dominance of the U.S. on the world’s oceans. However, the first use of a carrier force for China is the “large sea territory” that Huang noted in his statement.
Eight countries have competing claims for South China Sea islands located far from the mainland and the resources that surround them. China’s claim is by far the largest, and it rejects international arbitration under the U.N. convention on the Law of the Sea.
China has already fought the Vietnamese navy for these contested bits of land in the South China Sea. A Chinese aircraft carrier will be able to project air power over the contested islands, ensuring a Beijing victory.
In addition, Chinese carriers operating within the South China Sea can protect China’s reliance on imported oil passing through three straits between the South China Sea and the northeastern Indian Ocean.
Yet, China already has an aircraft carrier. The former Soviet carrier Varyag from Ukraine in 1998 wound its way through several nefarious hands to eventually dock at the Chinese naval base in Dalian. The ship, a sister of the Russian carrier Kuznetsov, is now spruced up with a coat of standard Chinese naval gray paint.
However, the fact the Chinese have the Varyag is in part due to the Clinton administration. In 1998 the aircraft carrier was sold at auction for $20 million. The winning bidder was a Macao-registered firm called Chong Lot. The purchasers pledged it would be used for peaceful purposes. The carrier was to be sent to Macao and would be used for a floating casino.
Turkish authorities, who denied the carrier passage through the Bosporus Strait because it was a warship, finally gave in when everyone, including the Clinton defense establishment, declared the Varyag to be a floating slot machine and not an aircraft carrier.
In the end, the carrier never made it to Macao. After the ship was sold, it was discovered that Chong Lot was a front company. The Macao head office address listed with the commercial registration bureau turned out not to exist. Chin Luck, its parent company based in Hong Kong, is reportedly a front for the Chinese military.
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