China navy floats three-carrier
plan By Russell Hsiao
On December 31, a Hong Kong newspaper Wen
Wei Pao cited a report that no one in the Western
media has detected concerning a Jane's Defence
Weekly article which reported that China has plans
to develop three-carrier battle groups over the
next decade.
News about this development
has been widely discussed in the Hong Kong and
Taiwanese press. Citing Jane's, Wen Wai Pao
reported that as a part of its carrier battle
group plans the People's Liberation Army Navy's
(PLAN) intends to establish an even stronger
submarine fleet; having added 20 nuclear-powered
submarines in the past five years, increasing the
total number of
submarines to 55. The report
indicated that the PLAN currently has 70
destroyers and frigates, 50 dock-landing ships and
45 coastal warships.
Taiwanese news
sources highlighted Gordon Jacobs, a Chinese
military analyst based in the United States -
whose report on the modernization of China's navy
in the Jane's report was one of the sources for
the report - as stating that if the Chinese
government contracted for the construction of the
carrier groups in 2006, then it is possible for
the first battle carrier group to break water as
early as 2011, be in service in 2014, and by 2016
be accompanied by a second service-ready aircraft
carrier group.
Jacobs cited Chen
Yung-kang, an official in Taiwan's Ministry of
Defense, who during a presentation at a defense
conference held in Taiwan in 2006 argued that
Taiwan needed submarines to strengthen its defense
capability against China's quickly expanding naval
power and its plan to develop two battle carrier
groups by 2020. Chen added that the Soviet-made
Varyag Carrier was being upgraded and repaired at
Dalian in Northeastern China, and being prepared
for training use.
The Chinese government
is still tight-lipped about its plans for the
former Soviet aircraft carrier which is now dry
docked in Dalian and painted in standard PLAN
gray. Taiwanese experts believe that the PLAN
intends to activate the carrier as a part of its
three-carrier battle group plan.
In 2007,
Chinese government sources admitted for the first
time that Beijing is researching and capable of
building an aircraft carrier, as stated by Huang
Qiang, a spokesman for the Commission of Science,
Technology and Industry for National Defense of
China (CSTIND). Furthermore, Zhang Yunchuan, the
CSTIND chairman, said last March that China was
indeed researching the building of aircraft
carriers: "China stands for strategic active
defense and, even when it owns aircraft carriers,
it will definitely not intrude into or occupy any
other nation or resort to force with the use of
carrier vessels," Zhang said.
On December
4, 2007, during a meeting with a visiting US
delegation headed by US Representative Eni
Faleomavaega, chairman of the sub-committee on
Asia, The Pacific, and the Global Environment in
the US House of Representatives, Taiwanese
President Chen Shui-bian asserted that China was
planning to design an Air Defense Identification
Zone (ADIZ) within the Taiwan Strait. Chen alleged
that Beijing planned to submit the proposal to the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO),
and at the same time, Beijing planned to
inaugurate a new air route on the Chinese side of
the median of the Taiwan Straits.
According to Joseph Wu - Taiwan's de facto
ambassador to the United States - in early
December, the General Administration of Civil
Aviation of China issued a press release stating
that the Central Military Commission and the State
Council had approved the route and flights would
run some 4.2 nautical miles (7.8 kilometers) west
of the centerline.
The Taiwanese
government claims that since approval for the bid
had to be attained from the Central Military
Commission, which has authority over China's
civilian aviation and airspace, China's bid to the
ICAO to operate on Taiwan's side of the strait can
be construed as a militarily provocative move, as
it also gives them the ability to deny access to
foreign aircraft in the area.
China's
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang repeatedly
denied any knowledge of China's plan to establish
an ADIZ within the Taiwan Strait.
In
related news, citing Taiwanese military sources
that Japanese government sources later confirmed,
Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun revealed that
Chinese Hong-6 bombers from the Huaining air force
base in Anhui province conducted military
maneuvers in areas of the East China Sea in
September 2007, the route covered areas that are
jointly enclosed by the Taiwan Strait Air Defense
Identification Zone and the Japan Air Defense
Identification Zone. The Hong-6 bombers reportedly
made 20 sorties to the area on September 11 and
23, which forced Japanese F4 fighter jets based at
Naha base in Okinawa Prefecture to respond by
conducting a total of 12 sorties along the routes.
In an interview with Kensuke Ebata, a
subject matter expert on defense and military
affairs in Tokyo and member of the Japanese
Security Export Control Committee, Asahi Shimbun
reported Ebata as saying:
Hong-6 bombers can carry long-range
air-to-sea missiles ... So it is possible for
the bombers to attack vessels at sea.
Personally, I think the bomber pilots were
undergoing a training exercise under the
scenario of blocking the arrival of US aircraft
carriers in Taiwan in the event of an emergency
situation there. The flights may also have been
aimed at trying to contain US forces following
large-scale maneuvers near Guam in August under
a scenario that the United States was at war
with China.
Russell
Hsiao is the editor of China Brief at The
Jamestown Foundation.
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