China eyes Japan with
carrier name By Jens Kastner
TAIPEI - The first aircraft carrier for
China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy)
is expected to enter service before October 1, the
63rd anniversary of the founding of the People's
Republic of China (PRC). But what's still missing
is a name for the steely monster that was
originally bought as scrap from Ukraine and has
since been refurbished in a Chinese shipyard in
northeastern Dalian city.
In the run-up to
the once-in-a-decade transition of power in
Beijing this autumn, the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) leadership is being domestically criticized
as weak in the country’s sovereignty disputes with
its neighbors, particularly with arch-rival Japan, and
a notion is emerging
that the carrier's nomenclature could kill two
birds with one stone.
According to this
school of thought, favored by some nationalist
Chinese military brass, the original Russian name
"Varyag" should be replaced with "Diaoyu Dao"
(Fishing Islands), which is how the Chinese call
the Senkakus (the Japanese term), a group of
islands in the East China Sea controlled by Japan
and claimed by China and Taiwan. They were the
scene of recent high-profile standoffs between
pro-China activists and the Japanese coast guard.
While unlikely to cause much more than a
shrug in Tokyo, Beijing could might see the move
as a chance not only to appease hawks at home but
also to unify the greater "Chinese nation".
A Confucian mantra "ming bu zheng ze
yan bushun; yan bu shun ze shi bu da" roughly
translates as "If something is not named properly,
then it can hardly be justified in argument. If
something is not properly justified, then it can
hardly achieve its aim." According to the ancient
Chinese sage, names of things must be chosen with
utmost care because without the proper names,
societies crumble and sacred national undertakings
stand no chance of being completed.
Last
year, it seemed as if Beijing was just about to
trample on this piece of wisdom. At the time,
rumors persisted that Beijing intended to rename
the Varyag after the Ming general Shi Lang,
who defected to the Qing after they had conquered
all of China but Taiwan. Under the Qing flag, Shi
Lang in 1683 led an amphibious operation with 300
warships and 20,000 troops against Taiwan,
eventually enforcing Qing rule upon the island.
There, at least according to some
Taiwanese accounts, he proceeded to extort
enormous monetary resources for his own profit.
Needless to say, if the PLA Navy names its largest
warship after such a polarizing figure, it would
deal a blow to the ongoing process of cross-strait
conciliation and further split the greater
"Chinese nation" more than it already is. In other
words, the PLA Navy would make Confucius turn in
his grave.
"I am sure that people in
Taiwan would be very unhappy if it is named 'Shi
Lang'," Wu Yu-shan, director of the Institute of
Political Science at Academia Sinica, Taiwan's
most prestigious research institution, told Asia
Times Online. "Because that name suggests the
carrier has the mission of 'liberating' Taiwan."
The man who brought up the "Diaoyu Dao"
idea, PLA Major-General Luo Yuan, is something of
a character. Luo arguably is the Chinese
military's most active media commentator; he
criticizes the civilian leadership's decisions
publicly and at times very bluntly.
He has
wanted to see much more troops, naval patrols and
fire power in disputed waters and has been pushing
the administration of President Hu Jintao to
declare the entire South China Sea China's third
Special Administrative Region (SRA) after Hong
Kong and Macao. What all of his nationalist
outbursts have in common is that they gain huge
applause in Chinese Internet forums. Hundreds of
thousands of netizens frequently give their two
cents in his support, putting significant pressure
on Beijing to heed his words.
Given the
recent high-profile trip by anti-Japan activists
from Hong Kong and Macau to the Diaoyu (Senkakus)
Islands - they landed briefly on the barren rocks,
waving flags of the PRC and Taiwan - and also
because the Hong Kong group was partly made up of
pro-democracy activists, who normally loathe the
CCP, Beijing could well find that an aircraft
carrier named "Diaoyu Dao" would serve its quest
for national unity. '
The choice appears
even more rewarding because the mainland Chinese
public has since come to see the activists as
nothing but national heroes. (To the average
Hongkonger, however, they remain a rather dubious
bunch.)
Professor Wu doesn't rule out that
a move to name China's first aircraft carrier
after the disputed islands would draw some
applause in Taiwan. But it wouldn't be of the loud
kind, as "the society is divided, between those
who are nationalistic and those who see a mainland
plot in the appearance of the [Taiwanese] Republic
of China flag carried by the Hong Kong protestors
when they landed on the islet."
Beijing
has still another intriguing option, Wu pointed
out. "If the People's Republic of China uses
Taiwan's term 'Diaoyu Tai', as opposed to
the mainland term 'Diaoyu Dao', then there
might be a higher degree of acceptance."
Whether the island or general's name are
chosen - or "Mao Zedong" or "Deng Xiaoping" as
some media have been speculating - the naming by
the PLA Navy of the ship after a place or a person
would represent a turning point in communist
traditions.
Ever since the Cultural
Revolution, by which Mao Zedong sought to get rid
once and for all of the old China he loathed, the
naming of ships and boats has been a process so
murky that not even the most renowned observers on
Chinese military affairs can identify an actual
system.
In what cautiously could be
described as a rule of thumb, ships' classes are
named after Chinese provinces, regions and
municipalities, while the actual ship goes only by
a number painted on its hull. An exception is the
Zheng He training vessel.
If the new
aircraft carrier indeed receives a real name
instead of just a number painted on its hull, then
it may be a start to resume Confucius' attitude
regarding names at the expense of Mao's
revolutionary stance. Since last year, insignia on
Chinese military uniforms and equipment have been
quietly and incrementally changed from "PLA", "PLA
Navy" and "PLA Air Force" to "China Army", "China
Navy" and "China Air Force", and around the same
time, Chinese officials began talking of the
"Chinese nation", as opposed to "China" or the
"People's Republic of China", when addressing
Taiwanese audiences.
The goal is obviously
to get the Taiwanese - and to a lesser extent the
Hongkongers - into the boat. From Beijing's
perspective, it is 15 years since Hong Kong was
handed over to China, yet hearts in the former
British territory appear reluctant to transfer
their loyalties so swiftly - not a single citizen
of Hong Kong has signed up with the PLA.
And how would the Japanese like seeing the
Varyag being renamed the "Diaoyu Dao"?
According to Chen Ching-Chang, a professor
at Japan's Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University,
the initial reaction should be similar to the
Taiwanese when rumors had it that the colossus
would become the "Shi Lang".
"It is
largely psychological - it is not necessary to
deploy an aircraft carrier so as to attack
Taiwan's military facilities and critical
infrastructure from the east side;
submarine-launched cruise missiles can already do
a fairly good job," he said.
"Similarly,
China's maiden aircraft carrier, named 'Diaoyu
Dao' or not, could not do much in an invasion of
the Senkaku islands. With or without US
assistance, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
is still qualitatively more superior than the PLA
Navy."
But the image of the Varyag
docked in a foggy port awaiting sea trials as
shown in Japan's TV news undoubtedly has an impact
on the Japanese psyche, Chen said. According to
him, it would not be surprising if Japanese
leaders resorted to carefully crafted names in
order to fire back at China.
"Tokyo
Governor [Shintaro] Ishihara recently suggested
that if Tokyo's Ueno Zoo has a pair of new born
giant pandas, their names could be 'Sensen' and
'Kakukaku'; taken together that makes up
'Senkaku'."
Jens Kastner is a
Taipei-based journalist.
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2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
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