Speculation grows on China aircraft carrier plans

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — China will have an aircraft carrier "very soon," a top Chinese naval officer told a newspaper published Friday, fueling speculation over a pending official announcement on the long-awaited project.

The Global Times newspaper cited east China fleet commander Adm. Xu Hongmeng as saying China possessed both the ability and motivation to build a carrier — a weapon system that is strongly backed by the navy but somewhat less enthusiastically by the People's Liberation Army's top commanders.

"China really needs a carrier. Both technologically and economically, China already has the capacity to build a carrier," said Xu, who was quoted while attending the national legislature's annual session in Beijing on Thursday.

"China will very soon have its own aircraft carrier," he told the paper, published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h7i1s...

[neverforget]

1. Looks like we're going to have some competition in the Pacific now

[Captain Hilts]

2. It's been looking that way for some time. nt

[Johnyawl]

4. That's what our Navy would like us to think...

"the redcoats are coming!"
"The Ruskies are coming!"
"The red chinese are coming!"

...that's how they sell us on the idea of 10 active duty carriers, when the rest of the world together has has four.(AND I'm talking the big angle deck carriers, not the little jumpjet/heli carriers.)

This from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/carriers.h...

"America has twice as many aircraft carriers as the rest of humanity combined, and America's aircraft carriers are substantially larger than almost all the other's aircraft carriers. The Navy likes to call the big Nimitz class carriers "4.5 acres of sovereign and mobile American territory" -- all two dozen American carriers of all classes add up to about 75 acres of deck space. Deckspace is probably a good measure of combat power. The rest of the world's carriers have about 15 acres of deck space, one fifth that of America's.

Also from the same website:

"Despite a great deal of speculation, there is scant evidence that China is actively working on an aircraft carrier."

edited to add a thought:

There are times I believe that the worlds militaries cooperate far closer then we realize. Think about the timing of this announcement: We're in an economic crises, the democrats are in charge, and there's talk of trimming the military budget, and all military programs are open to review, and will be competeing with each other for scarce dollars. And what happens? China anounces they're thinkng about building an aircraft carrier. OMG!! We can't cut our military budget now, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!!

Does anybody else get the feeling that some admiral in our navy called up some admiral in the Chinese navy and asked him to float that carrier balloon again?

[Captain Hilts]

8. Perhaps, but that's not the only place I read it and there's no denying a higher profile...

of the Chinese military.

Them's the facts.

[Johnyawl]

11. Higher profile, sure, and a bit of "prestige"...

...but not exactly a shift in the naval balance of power. Even if they managed to built something in the Nimitz class, which is extremely unlikely, they'd still only have one. It basically moves them into a competitive class with Brazil's navy.

[Selatius]

17. When they get up to about 5 to 10 carriers, we would then start to worry.

If they have that many carriers running around in the Pacific, we would have real questions about exercising naval power in that part of the world.

[hunter]

3. Aircraft carriers seem pretty useless in the 21st century.

Maybe we should sell them one of ours. We probably don't even have to strip out much of the "top secret" technology seeing as how the Chinese already have so much of it already.

We'd save a whole lot of money having one less carrier to operate, and it would reduce the trade imbalance between the U.S. and China.

[Posteritatis]

6. It's the prestige value as much as anything

Especially for a mostly up-and-coming country like China's, that probably has benefits significantly out of proportion to the mere military ones. "We did this!"

The intangibles matter, even these days.

[hack89]

12. Actually it is just the opposite

Global mobility and not having to worry about getting other countries permission to use their airbases is huge.

With the advent of precision weapons like JDAM, the firepower of a carrier air wing has been increased significantly.

[DS1]

5. Its lead-lining will poison everything in its wake

[Xolodno]

7. Didn't I recently read...

That the Russian Federation was also thinking about getting back into the Aircraft Carrier business?

Lets be honest, a carrier is predominately used for offense. Its secondary use is to protect assets off the main land. Of course this is in a conventional war. Maybe China wants to give Taiwan some more jitters and the Russian Federation wants to make sure "friendly" nations pay the bills they owe them.

Hence why most nations don't bother with them. The main goal is to protect their borders and its navy to protect its coasts. You only need a carrier if you have ambitious plans away from your borders....provided your plans don't include a nation that doesn't have a fleet of submarines that are difficult to detect.

[bemildred]

9. Hey, it they want to throw money away, that's OK with me.

As long a they keep buying our treasury bonds.

[Massacure]

10. An aircraft carrier would not be of benefit to China

They don't have decent planes to put on it.

[hack89]

13. They would use SU-30s - excellent aircraft. nt

[OmahaBlueDog]

14. That's OK, because next they'll buy Boeing

[pscot]

15. While we're selling them a carrier

why not make it a package deal. Include a fleet of F18s. It would do wonders for the old trade balance. Then maybe we could sell the same packege to Japan. By this time Maylasia is getting nervous, so they'll need one too. Hey, this could really snowball. Arms for peace.

[daleo]

16. The world needs more dreadnoughts

And maybe some trenches.

[Selatius]

18. That would be tragic if the second half of the 21st century looked like the end of the 1800s.

In the late 1800s, the world's biggest powers were locked in an arms race to see who could claim title as the greatest military force. Political tensions grew higher with each passing year. World War One followed soon thereafter when the spark lit the tinder box, and the 20th Century as we know it was essentially born.

[daleo]

21. Yep, nothing like a naval arms race

followed by a world war.

[ohio2007]

19. one carrier makes only a training vessel and not a fleet

Hope they don't buy and build from Russian tested designs.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jx4kB...
The way India has been hosed with the 35 yr old white elephant currently "under refit" has become a laughing stock.



Carriers are very expensive systems and I'm sure Russia will keep a watchful eye on their neighbor

[Angleae]

20. They already have.

The former Varyag. Sold at auction before completion. Now owned by the chinese navy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_aircraft_carrier_Va...