A very interesting piece in today’s WSJ by Hugo Restall on China’s apparent decision to embark on an aircraft carrier building program. As Restall points out, this decision indicates a shift in military emphasis to regional or global power projection and away from the mere conquest of Taiwan.
Until this time, China’s surface navy has been a collection of older, upgraded Russian surface ships (chiefly Sovremenny-class destroyers and older frigate designs). While the Chinese have built several good Type 051C Missile Destroyers, there has been no move as yet to begin mass production of this or any other fleet defense design.
When it comes to aircraft carriers, the Chinese have done some tinkering already, purchasing from the Ukraine the ex-Varyag, an unfinished second copy of the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov design. The vessel is a hulk, however, and probably will never be completed.
So now the Chinese defense ministry has announced that they want to acquire the capability. As Restall points out, this is by no means an overnight project. The complexities involved are both enormous and expensive. It will take up a good deal of shipyard and design capacity and will involve the creation of escorts that can defend a battle group. None of that exists at present.
Even if this is a 10 or 20-year project, however, it can’t help but make both Washington and our Asian allies nervous. Having aircraft carriers makes a political point about China being the new sheriff in town after 60 years of American dominance – and at a time when U.S. naval shipbuilding continues to slide.
Our options for containing this development seem fairly good, however. If we normalize relations with Vietnam, there are basing rights to be had in the South China Sea. The U.S. has already beefed up the base at Apra Harbor, Guam, to cover the area. I would think that a very good thing to do would be to accelerate shipbuilding of our own, particularly submarines capable of operating in the littorals. Come to think of it, that sorta sounds like the Virginia Class.
