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China has officially commissioned its newest aircraft carrier Fujian after extensive sea trials, state media reported on Friday.
Experts suggest the new ship will significantly strengthen what is already the world’s largest navy, enabling it to project power beyond its home waters.
The official Xinhua news agency confirmed that the Fujian was moored in Sanya, on Hainan island, on Wednesday.
The ceremony was attended by President Xi Jinping and underlined the strategic importance of the new enhancements to China’s naval capabilities.
Fujian is China’s third aircraft carrier and is a significant achievement as it is the first aircraft carrier to be entirely designed and built by the country.
Its unveiling is seen as a prime example of Mr Xi’s sweeping military overhaul and expansion, which aims to create a modern force by 2035 and a “world-class” military by the middle of the century – a goal widely interpreted as an aspiration to rival that of the United States.
With this latest development, Beijing is taking another important step toward reducing the operational gap with the US Navy, especially with regard to its extensive carrier fleet and global network of bases that facilitates its presence around the world.
“Carriers are important for the Chinese leadership to see China as a great power with a blue-water navy,” or a power that can project power far from its coastal waters, said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
For China’s navy, one goal is to dominate the waters near the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea around the so-called First Island Chain, which runs south through Japan. taiwan And Philippines. But deeper into the Pacific, it also wants to be able to contest control over another island chain, where the United States has significant military facilities on Guam and elsewhere, Mr. Poling said.
“A carrier doesn’t really help you in the first island chain, but it is key to that competition if you want that with the Americans in the broader Indo-Pacific,” he said.
China’s “increasingly capable military” and ability to “project power globally” is one of the reasons why the Pentagon in its latest report to Congress called it “the only rival to the United States with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order”.
Also, Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military affairs expert, said, “It is Beijing’s right to transform its navy into a blue-water strategic navy in line with China’s national strength.”
“China’s carriers cannot only operate near home, they must operate in distant oceans and far seas to carry out various training and support missions.
“China is a great power and our foreign interests extend around the world; we need to be present globally.”
Fujian is a step in that direction.
One possibility that raises concerns in foreign capitals is a possible blockade or invasion of the democratically self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and Mr Xi has not ruled out seizing by force.
Although the islands lie just off China’s coast, if China had the ability to deploy an aircraft carrier group or groups around the second island chain – between Taiwan and the US Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii – it could delay potential US military assistance in the event of a Chinese attack.
“They want those aircraft carriers to play a role in expanding the strategic perimeter away from China, and one of the important things an aircraft carrier can do is expand the range of China’s domain awareness to monitor activities in the air, at sea and under the sea,” said Brian Hart, deputy director of CSIS’s China Power Project.
China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was Soviet-built and its second, the Shandong, was built in China but based on Soviet models. Both use old-style ski-jump type systems to help the planes take off.
Fujian surpasses the steam catapult technology used on most US carriers, employing an electromagnetic launch system found only on the newest US Navy Ford-class carriers.
This system creates less stress on the aircraft and ship, allows more precise control over speed and can launch a wider range of aircraft than the steam system. Compared to the ski-jump system, it gives China the ability to launch heavier aircraft with full fuel load, like the KJ-600 early warning and control aircraft, which it successfully tested during its sea trials.
Its latest J-35 stealth fighter and J-15T heavy fighter were also launched from Fujian, giving the new carrier “full-deck operation capability,” according to the Chinese Navy.
The ability to carry its own reconnaissance aircraft means that unlike its first two carriers, it will not operate indiscriminately when out of range of land-based support, giving it the ability to operate its most advanced aircraft including the Second Island Chain.
“The Fujian carrier is a huge leap forward for China in terms of its aircraft carrier capabilities compared to the first two,” Mr Hart said.
Still, Mr. Hart said, China’s navy lags behind the U.S. in several important ways.
Numerically it has only three carriers compared to the US Navy’s 11, and while all of China’s carriers are conventionally powered, all of America’s carriers are nuclear powered which means they can operate almost indefinitely without refueling – dramatically increasing their range.
The Ford-class carrier, of which only one is currently in service but more are being built, is also larger, can carry more aircraft on its flight deck, and has a third elevator meaning it can move more aircraft from the lower deck hangar in less time.
China also lags behind the US in guided missile cruisers and destroyers, which are vital in providing air and submarine defense and support for large naval groups, as well as nuclear-powered submarines.
The U.S. also leads in vertical launching system cells — basically systems for capturing and launching missiles from ships — which is a measure of how much firepower ships can carry, Hart said, although China is ramping up that capability.
Beyond mere equipment, China lacks the US’s network of overseas bases, which are vital for resupplying carriers and also providing alternative runways if aircraft are not able to return safely to the carrier.
However, China is working on expanding its overseas bases, and has a nuclear propulsion system under development for a carrier.
There is also evidence that China is already building another carrier. Chinese shipyards have the capacity to build more than one ship at a time, and they are also building other new ships at a pace that the United States can’t even come close to matching at the moment.
“In fact, China is closing the gap,” Mr. Hart said.
“They’re deploying and building more aircraft carriers, they’re deploying more nuclear-powered submarines, they’re deploying more, larger destroyers and other ships that carry larger numbers of missiles. So they’re really catching up.”
China has happily shown off its new military assets by releasing video of KJ-600, J-35 and J-15T test flights from Fujian.
All three aircraft were displayed at the World War II Victory Day parade in early September, along with hypersonic glide vehicles – whose high speed, maneuverability and other characteristics make them more difficult to intercept than conventional ballistic missiles – aerial and underwater drones and electronic warfare systems.
However, sophisticated new equipment does not necessarily translate into military preparedness, said Singapore-based analyst Tang Meng Kit, who said China has not fought a war since 1979 and the carefully choreographed parade was good at “boosting the perception of strength”.
“It is possible that China’s capabilities have been overstated, as real-world operational preparedness lags behind its demonstrated arsenal,” he said.
He did S. in Singapore. A recent analysis by the Rajaratnam School of International Studies also cautioned that it would be a mistake to look at China’s military modernization solely toward a potential Taiwan invasion, which it said is only one part of a “larger mosaic.”
The parade “signaled China’s broader strategic intentions, which are to deter major powers, exert pressure on regional actors, expand its global influence, and strengthen its domestic legitimacy,” he said.