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China-Japan-Koreas
China's 1st Aircraft Carrier Heads For Western Pacific
2016-12-26
China's first aircraft carrier has set off for the Western Pacific for an open-sea training exercise, the Defense Ministry said. State media said Sunday that it is the first time that the Liaoning, which was commissioned by the Chinese navy in 2012, has headed to "distant sea waters." The Western Pacific region stretches from China to New Zealand and encompasses countries in the Pacific, Oceania and parts of Asia.

The statement said a navy formation including the Liaoning set off Saturday for training in the Western Pacific, without elaborating on the location, as part of an annual training plan.
This is what carrier battle groups do: practice.
China said last month that its aircraft carrier, purchased as an incomplete hull from Ukraine more than a decade ago, was ready to engage in combat. The Liaoning recently completed its first live-fire exercise along with fighters in the Bohai Sea in eastern China and, on Friday, the military announced it had carried out a series of fighter launch, recovery and air combat exercises slightly farther afield in the Yellow Sea.

On Saturday morning, the Liaoning carried out training in the East China Sea, according to footage shown on state broadcaster China Central Television. A separate statement from the Defense Ministry said that several carrier-based fighter jets and helicopters took off one after another and returned after completing an air tactical confrontation and air refueling exercise.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said it spotted the Liaoning as part of a fleet of eight Chinese warships that included destroyers and frigates, in the central part of the East China Sea for the first time. It said there was no incursion into Japanese waters.

China hasn't described specifically how it intends to use the Liaoning, but it is seen as helping reinforce China's increasingly assertive claims over almost all of the South China Sea, which is home to key shipping lanes, rich fishing grounds and a potential wealth of mineral resources.
Posted by:Steve White

#13  All great input and analysis.
I anticipate an opportunity for deepwater exploring.
Posted by: Skidmark   2016-12-26 19:31  

#12  Bottom line is that we'd better think about what we're prepared to defend in the Western Pacific, how much money we're prepared to spend defending it and what our end game vis-a-vis China is going to be. I suspect nothing short of partition, with a China occupied by neighboring powers, will neutralize the long-term Chinese threat. Since that is not a practical possibility, short of a lucky roll of the dice (i.e. large scale multi-faction civil war in China culminating in the establishment of multiple independent countries along historical ethno-linguistic lines), we are looking at an armed truce in the wake of limited hostilities that will repeatedly flare up as China does probes in force.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2016-12-26 16:54  

#11  re ZF: studying the purloined us papers and actually foing it is sorta like spectator sex: it aint the same. look for some "Made by China" holes in the water coming soon.

They're not just studying. They're doing. That's what the massive PLAN budget is all about - money for avgas, spare parts, simulators, training hours and the whole panoply of requirements for a blue water navy.

The product issues we get with some imported Chinese goods are the result of a low-bid process completed at rock bottom prices made feasible only by under-speccing the product delivered. At $180b, the Chinese military isn't cutting corners on cost - adjusted for salary differences (6 to 1), they're spending at least as much as the US, if not more.

The Chinese have been pretty good at ripping off extremely complicated and fast-evolving products in the tech sector. By comparison, the military is practically standing still. I expect they will have little difficulty replicating functions explained in microscopic detail the way the US military tends to do, especially since they have no shortage of funding to do it with.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2016-12-26 16:44  

#10  The Chinese have a fairly large and modern navy,

As we're aware of, but carrier groups have to have depth to cover rotations well afar from home base. One in for maintenance, one out, and one training.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2016-12-26 16:19  

#9  They do know that the screen doors at the water line are a joke don't they? Ummmmmmmm, don't they?
Posted by: AlanC   2016-12-26 16:02  

#8  "foing" = "doing"
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2016-12-26 15:45  

#7  re ZF: studying the purloined us papers and actually foing it is sorta like spectator sex: it aint the same. look for some "Made by China" holes in the water coming soon.
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2016-12-26 15:44  

#6  All nice. Now to you have an effective escort group to increase its survivability outside of land based cover? The Argies had an aircraft carrier that didn't venture too far from home during the Falklands conflict, for good reason.

The Chinese have a fairly large and modern navy, thanks to decades of massive investments in new capital ships. This carrier's just the tip of the iceberg. A couple of additional carriers are on the way.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2016-12-26 15:34  

#5  Is the PLAN doing all of this "cold start" without carrier familiarization / cross-training with foreign navies? Expect some costly accidents if so as the sea is unkind to amateurs.

You can bet they're doing this only after poring over reams of (purloined and translated) archived material from Uncle Sam's Navy.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2016-12-26 15:23  

#4  "distant sea waters."

off their coast
Posted by: Frank G   2016-12-26 12:22  

#3  All nice. Now to you have an effective escort group to increase its survivability outside of land based cover? The Argies had an aircraft carrier that didn't venture too far from home during the Falklands conflict, for good reason.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2016-12-26 08:45  

#2  China said last month that its aircraft carrier, purchased as an incomplete hull from Ukraine more than a decade ago, was ready to engage in combat.

The carrier was purchased by a Hong Kong business man from the Ukraine, Xu Zengping, who "sold" it to the central government. However, the government never paid him even 1 yen, and practically ruined the man.
Posted by: Shose Slavise2667   2016-12-26 02:07  

#1  Is the PLAN doing all of this "cold start" without carrier familiarization / cross-training with foreign navies? Expect some costly accidents if so as the sea is unkind to amateurs.
Posted by: magpie   2016-12-26 01:22  

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