Article in this weeks Economist
Carry that weight
China’s next aircraft-carrier will be its biggest
Jul 1st 2021
JIANGNAN SHIPYARD lies on an alluvial island at the mouth of the Yangzi river. It has grown rapidly since it moved there from nearby Shanghai in 2009, churning out destroyers, icebreakers and landing craft for the Chinese navy. The jewel in its crown is under construction. China is saying little about it, but satellite imagery reveals a near-complete flight deck in a corner of the yard where, less than 15 years ago, there was only farmland.
For now, the vessel-to-be is blandly known to military analysts as the Type 003. It will be China’s second domestically built aircraft-carrier and the largest ship that has ever served in the Chinese fleet. Experts at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank in Washington, have analysed satellite pictures such as the one above, which was taken in June by Planet Labs, an American firm. They conclude that the ship will be about as long as New York’s Chrysler Building is high: about 320 metres. She will mark another leap forward in China’s advance as a naval power.
The Type 003 could be launched this year, state media say. But building carriers is not the same as sailing them. Flying planes off wobbly decks is hard. In America, thousands of jets and pilots were lost in the formative years of naval aviation. It is also difficult to keep a carrier safe from missiles and submarines, and to integrate one into a “strike group” of warships. “It’s taken us over 100 years to get that right,” noted an American admiral in September. China hopes to be quicker.
There are signs that it is upping the tempo. Last year the navy put both of its carriers to sea at the same time. In April the
Liaoning sailed through the Miyako Strait, south of the Japanese island of Okinawa; exercised near Taiwan and in the South China Sea; and returned the same way. Its escorts included the Renhai-class destroyer, one of the world’s most capable ships of its kind, as well as a Fuyu-class support vessel, which can replenish carrier strike-groups far from home.
Even so, a carrier designed in the early 1980s, and another based on it, hardly represent the cutting-edge of sea power. “I don’t worry from a US Navy point of view,” says Mr Montgomery. “These are just targets for our submarines.” That is where the Type 003 comes in. CSIS reckons she is already 10 metres longer than her predecessors. She is likely to be the world’s largest non-American carrier for many years, The Chinese navy does not plan to stop there. It is widely assumed that the Type 003’s successor is being planned. It may be nuclear-powered.
Mastering these technologies and learning the craft of conducting high-intensity air operations at sea will take years. Its planes are lightly armed, even compared with European counterparts, says Alessio Patalano of King’s College London. “I’ve yet to see a single picture of a Chinese plane taking off from a deck with a full payload,” he says.
The expert consensus is that China plans eventually to build a fleet of somewhere between six and ten. That would put it within spitting distance of America’s fleet of 11, the world’s largest.