Beijing launches its first locally made aircraft carrier
BEIJING: China has launched its first aircraft carrier built entirely on its own, in a demonstration of t he growing technical sophistication of its defence industries and determination to safeguard its maritime territorial claims and crucial trade routes.
The 50,000-tonne carrier was towed from its dockyard just after 9am yesterday following a ceremony in the northern port city of Dalian, where its predecessor, the Soviet-built Liaoning, also underwent extensive refurbishing before being commissioned in 2012, the Ministry of National Defence said.
Development of the new carrier began in 2013 and construction in late 2015. It’s expected to be formally commissioned sometime before 2020, after sea trials and the arrival of its full air complement.
Vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission and Communist Party Central Committee member Fan Changlong presided over the launch, which came just three days after the anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s symbolic founding in 1949.
Also attending was navy commander Vice-Adm Shen Jinlong, a former commander of the South Sea Fleet responsible for defending China’s claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.
Like the 60,000-tonne Liaoning, which was purchased from the Ukraine, the new carrier is based on the Soviet Kuznetsov class design, with a ski jump-style deck for taking off and a conventional oil-fuelled steam turbine power plant. That limits the weight of payloads its planes can carry, its speed and the amount of time it can spend at sea relative to American nuclear-powered carriers.
The main hull of the new carrier has been completed and its power supply put into place. Next up are mooring tests and the debugging of its electronic systems, the defence ministry said.
China is believed to be planning to build at least two and possibly as many as four additional carriers, with one of them, the Type 002, reported to be already under construction at a shipyard outside Shanghai.
They are expected to be closer in size to the US Navy’s nuclear-powered 100,000tonne Nimitz class ships, with flat flight decks and catapults to allow planes to launch with more bombs and fuel aboard.
Along with their role in protecting China’s maritime interests, Chinese naval strategists see the carrier programme as “about having naval power commensurate with China’s international status, to impress both external and domestic audiences”, said Michael Chase, an expert on the Chinese military at US think tank the Rand Corporation.
The new carrier “is likely to be seen as further evidence of China’s desire to become the most powerful and influential country in the region,” Mr Chase said.