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China paints naval markings on former aircraft carrier Varyag
Looks like the PLA is building up its force projection capabilities. For the doubters out there, the Japanese economy was about 1/10 the US economy when WWII broke out. But the Imperial Japanese Navy blasted the combined European and American navies in East Asia out of the water at the outset of WWII. This bears watching.China has taken another step toward seeking to project maritime power far beyond its shores, by painting naval markings on a former Soviet aircraft carrier that it originally purchased as a floating casino. According to a report in a recent issue of Jane's Defence Weekly, shipyard workers in the northeastern city of Dalian have been repairing the badly damaged Varyag in a fresh sign that the Chinese navy is once again pursuing its goal of developing a working aircraft carrier. That is further evidence that China's leaders are miscalculating, by wanting too much too soon and pursuing a muddled maritime strategy that is likely to backfire. China's former paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, must be spinning in his grave. Comprehending that the Soviet Union could not sustain vast military spending on the basis of a command economy, he set China on a different course. Deng intended to build up China's wealth and power by means of engagement with market forces, while ensuring that the Communist Party remained in control. But Deng intended to do so gradually, since he was astute enough to realize that moving too quickly in this direction would only frighten other countries into forming a counterbalancing coalition. As a veteran political commissar in the military, and Long March veteran, Deng was able to insist that military modernization be the last of China's "four modernizations." But his successors, engineer-bureaucrats lacking military experience, do not possess Deng's wisdom or his cachet with the military. And now the rebuilding of the Varyag will set alarm bells ringing that it could become the first in a fleet of Chinese aircraft carriers. The Varyag was one of two full-deck aircraft carriers the Soviet Union was building when the Cold War ended. It was designed to carry the naval variant of the Sukhoi-27 fighter aircraft (which China now produces under license). Sold to China ostensibly for use as a floating casino, the Varyag soon ended up in its present location -- a naval shipyard in Dalian. China has been showing signs of interest in aircraft carriers for some time. In 1985, it bought the old Australian carrier Melbourne, ostensibly for scrap. The Melbourne was eventually broken up, but not until it had been extensively studied, and a replica flight deck built for Chinese pilots to practice carrier take offs and landings. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, China bought two Kiev-class carriers, Minsk and Kiev. Although kept in amusement parks in Chinese ports, these are sure to have been scrutinized by Chinese military experts. Judging from the latest activity in Dalian, China now seems bent on repeating the mistakes of the "risk fleets" of Germany's Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz before World War I, and Soviet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov in the 1970s. Neither Tirpitz nor Gorshkov sought to match ship for ship the fleets of the then-dominant maritime power, respectively Britain and the United States. Rather, as continental powers with huge land armies, Germany and the Soviet Union sought to achieve hegemony over the Eurasian land mass by depriving the dominant maritime power of the ability to play its historic role of global offshore balancer. But Germany and then Russia succeeded only in provoking the formation of a counterbalancing coalition led by the dominant maritime power of the time. Today China is seeking hegemony on a smaller scale, over the southeastern edge of Eurasia. But even that is a threat that the United States, as the dominant maritime power, cannot afford to ignore. Neither can Japan, an archipelago that needs maritime protection and which has been alarmed by more aggressive Chinese nuclear submarine activity, including an intrusion into its territorial waters and activity off Guam last November. China's new assertiveness is already showing signs of provoking the formation of a balancing coalition led by the United States, the current dominant maritime power. Straws in the wind include the rapid improvement in strategic connections among the United States, Japan and India. Australia, another U.S. ally, has a new fleet of capable conventional submarines as well as strike aircraft. Until recently, Chinese naval strategy has focused on the more modest goal of seeking to deter the U.S. navy from intervening in a Taiwan crisis. This sea-denial strategy involved building (and buying from Russia) more conventional submarines, which are better suited than nuclear submarines for operations in the shallow waters of the Taiwan Straits, while developing anti-ship cruise missile platforms and ballistic missiles with maneuverable warheads to deter the U.S. Now by showing fresh signs of also trying to develop a carrier battle fleet capable of projecting Chinese power over great distances, something which not even the Soviet Union managed to do, Beijing is pursuing an expensive and risky goal that only serves to muddle its maritime strategy in a way that will prove counterproductive. The best strategy for the U.S. is to stand back and let China make such a strategic error. For example, there is no need for America to counter China's more aggressive submarine activity by increasing its deployment of surface ships and nuclear submarines in the region. Rather, America should concentrate on remaining forward deployed with the right force structure to respond to the real threat -- a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan. That includes, for example, the U.S. marines in Okinawa, who are only a 90-minute flight away from Taiwan. The best way for the U.S. to deter a Chinese attack is to show it has the capability to respond by rapidly putting forces on the ground in Taiwan and the Marine Corps., which specializes in combined-arms tactics, are ideal for this purpose. China is also posing a maritime challenge that Japan cannot afford to ignore and which can best be met by further strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance, with much greater emphasis on interoperability. By once again raising the specter of using aircraft carriers to deploy its power over a greater distance, China's muddled maritime strategy only serves to accelerate the development of a counterbalancing coalition to curb its military ambitions. Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-08-24 |
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