BEIJING: China is set to launch a yet-unnamed aircraft carrier, the second one it has built domestically and the third in its nascent fleet, several reports including in the Chinese state media and satellite imagery have said.
The imminent launch of the carrier comes at a time when China is rapidly expanding its naval presence in the far seas, and has already become the navy with the largest number of warships in the world.
The Type 003 aircraft carrier is under construction at the state-owned Jiangnan shipyard on Changxing Island in Shanghai, which is emerging from a months-long crippling Covid-19 lockdown.
“Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC on May 31 suggest work on the vessel is close to done,” the Associated Press said in a report on Friday.
The Jiangnan Shipyard launched three new ships and readied two ships for the next stage of construction on Monday, the state-run tabloid Global Times reported earlier this week.
“At this rate, China’s third aircraft carrier, reportedly also being built at the shipyard, could be launched soon,” the tabloid quoted anonymous observers as saying.
In late April, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy released a promotional video on China’s aircraft programme, in which it implied that the country’s third aircraft carrier will be officially revealed soon, the Global Times report said.
“Although it will be years before the Type 003 enters military service and achieves initial operating capability, its launch will be a seminal moment in China’s ongoing modernisation efforts and a symbol of the country’s growing military might,” the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said about the launch on Thursday.
China for the first time officially acknowledged it is building a third aircraft carrier that is expected to be “bigger and mightier” than the first domestically-built one in November, 2018.
Type 003 is part of China’s heavily guarded “new generation carrier” programme, which aims at indigenously building the ships.
“In addition to being the largest of its three carriers, the new Type 003 class is fitted with a catapult launch system that will “enable it to support additional fighter aircraft, fixed-wing early-warning aircraft, and more rapid flight operations and thus extend the reach and effectiveness of its carrier-based strike aircraft,” the US defence department said in its annual report to Congress on China’s military in November.
In early May, eight Chinese warships, led by PLA Navy’s aircraft carrier Liaoning – China’s first carrier bought from Ukraine as a hull and refurbished here – passed between southern Japan’s Okinawa island chain in a show of strength that state media described as “preparation for missions that include a potential military conflict across the Taiwan Strait”.
In March, Shandong, China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier, sailed through the Taiwan Straits from south to north without aircraft on its flight deck, Taiwan’s ministry of defence confirmed, triggering a buzz among China navy watchers.
China has the largest navy in the world in terms of number of ships but not near the capabilities of the US Navy.
Among other assets, the US Navy remains the world’s leader in aircraft carriers, with its forces able to muster 11 nuclear-powered vessels. The Navy also has nine amphibious assault ships, which can carry helicopters and vertical-takeoff fighter jets as well, the Associated Press report said.