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By Robert Farley
China’s acquisition of the Varyag was contingent on a series of improbable events.
Over the past few days, the fascinating story of China’s acquisition of the Ukrainian carrier Varyag has emerged in the South China Morning Post. We should take the story with grain of salt; as with many military procurement decisions, we likely won’t have the full story for a very long time. Nevertheless, the narrative illuminates the problems and conflicts associated with purchasing the carrier, getting it to China, and convincing the Chinese government that acquiring the ship was at all worthwhile.
China’s acquisition of Varyag was contingent on a series of often improbable events. How would China’s carrier program have worked out differently if Ukraine has rejected the purchase, or the Turks had refused transit of the ship, or if the hulk had sunk along the way (a real possibility at the time)?
One takeaway from the series, affirming a long-term impression of China watchers, is that the carrier program has long been controversial within Chinese military and political circles. Without the presence of the potentially refurbishable hulk, voices within the PLAN arguing in favor of carrier aviation would have had a tougher case to make. According to the SCMP, the Varyag had complete, intact engines, making reconstruction a much less expensive prospect than would otherwise have been the case.
Read the full story at The Diplomat