China’s Aircraft Carriers

Aircraft carriers matter. Modern aircraft carriers matter more.

Another year has passed in China’s decades-long journey toward global maritime domination. It surpassed the US Naval fleet in size in 2019 and continued to expand its lead in 2020. From China’s perspective it is moving closer to achieving its rightful place by imposing its world view on other nations and peoples. One area of great concern is the development of its PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy). Three decades ago, the Chinese Navy did not possess over-the-horizon radar, which is needed to sail outside its coastal “green” waters.

Today, China possesses a blue water navy that is expanding at a fast pace with extensive qualitative improvements, although still lagging well behind the United States in capabilities. At current production rates China will have more than 330 warships within a few years, with possibly 430 surface ships and 100 submarines by 2030. Sanya, China’s newest naval base on Hainan Island is complete with a covered port for basing and maintaining submarines. It sits at the edge of the South China Sea near contested waters belonging to Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. In 2020 China conducted live-fire, naval anti-ship drills there using its Harbin Z-9 helicopters stationed against simulated targets.

It was only a year ago that China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was commissioned officially after finishing 18 months of sea trials. The ship’s structure was built in Russia and can launch 24 Shenyang J-15 multirole fighter aircraft. It represents a significant advance in naval warfare capabilities for China. Although smaller and less capable than the USS-Nimitz-class, the Liaoning is fast and has a modernized command center. The Shandong, China’s second aircraft carrier, was reverse engineered from the Liaoning. It is China’s first domestically built carrier. The Liaoning finished its third sea trial on December 21, 2020. US military analysts expect it to be fully operational by August 2024.

The communist giant is continuing the expansion and upgrading of its navy in 2020 with construction of a third aircraft carrier. Although not yet finished it is expected to feature a new generation of catapult launching system that will be able to launch more aircraft with heavier weapons than China’s two existing carriers based which are based on Cold War-era Soviet designs. China is not only building ships, it is joining actively with Russia to conduct maritime exercises.

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China has deployed UUV’s (unmanned underwater vehicle’s) capable to aiding subs hiding in waters throughout the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Its long-range UUV Sea Wing gliders can operate for months on end and have traveled deep in waters in the Indian Ocean, among other regions. Information from the UUV’s could be used to help Chinese naval vessels traverse the region or aid in blocking commercial traffic transporting products across the globe. The PLAN runs about four to five surface ships concurrently in the IOR (Indian Ocean Region) mapping out the best submarine routes.

In Asian waters Beijing expanded and fortified its naval bases on artificially-built islands in contested and strategically important areas of the South China Sea. It now has seven artificial islands which cover about 3,200 acres of coral reefs in the disputed Spratly archipelago. It is using these to support aircraft carrier and carrier-launched fighter planes.

China has intensified its demonstration of naval power throughout the South China Sea, IOR, and beyond in what appears to be a new maritime era. There is no slowdown in sight. Beijing’s total defense budget currently exceeds the combined totals of Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In comparison to the United States China has little experience in operating integrated carrier battle groups, but that is only a matter of time before it is on par with the US and other major naval powers, according the naval analysts.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Photo: A jet takes off from the deck of the CNS Liaoning. (China Defence Ministry)

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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