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| Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning |
By Koh Swee Lean Collin
As the country builds its first indigenous carrier, what might it have in mind?
The international media landed itself a gift shortly before ushering in 2016, when it transpired at a recent Chinese Defense Ministry press conference that Beijing’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, and the second one for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) after the Liaoning entered service since September 25, 2012, is currently under construction.
A Surprise?
The announcement is hardly a surprise, given that open-source intelligence, academic and media commentaries have long reported on China’s ongoing aircraft carrier program. Even Chinese reports (see here and here) have hinted at PLAN’s aspirations to operate more than one carrier. The carrier was even dubbed “Project 001A,” and Internet photos of what appears to be the assembly of modules for an aircraft carrier-like platform at a Dalian shipyard have circulated. Chinese officials, including those from the PLA, have also noted the existence of the program.
Compared to the past, Beijing has certainly become more forthright about its defense programs, such as publishing defense white papers since 1998 and holding regular defense ministry press conferences. Of course, one could still claim that these efforts lack real transparency – the white papers, for instance, are rich in policy rhetoric but lack details. Nonetheless, the disparate nuggets of information, whether deliberately intended by Chinese authorities for release into the public domain or otherwise, allow the analyst to formulate a picture, even if an incomplete one.
While imperfect, this picture at a minimum allows a glimpse at what exactly may be in store for China’s new aircraft carrier. In a way, the information helped in desensitizing the academic and intelligence communities to the prospective materialization of China’s carrier ambitions, in the context of external suspicions towards Beijing’s massive military buildup. This was very similar to the earlier case of the unfinished ex-Soviet carrierVaryag, which Beijing purchased from Ukraine in the 1990s and subsequently refurbished and refitted prior to adding it to the PLAN as Liaoning in 2012. Since the 1990s, the international community was aware of the existence of this program thanks to the availability of fragmentary information, even though it took quite some time for Beijing to officially announce plans to put Liaoning into service. As such, the Liaoningdid not really come as a surprise, even if one continues to question Beijing’s underlying strategic intent behind this move.
Based on Beijing’s pattern of information disclosure, one may anticipate that in the future, the public will at least have prior snippets of information related to the PLAN’s new, follow-on carriers before official announcements are made. But as Beijing’s recent clampdown (see here and here) on the leakage of militarily sensitive information has shown, there is every attempt to safeguard operational security. At the same time, though, Beijing may also rely on the release of disparate information, through proxy channels perhaps, to help desensitize the international community to its new future carriers. While this certainly falls short of “complete” transparency, it is better than having no information at all.
Read the full story at The Diplomat