Beijing, Dec 23: China on Tuesday said it was
"seriously considering" building its first aircraft carrier, in a sign that indicates Beijing is proposing to expand its Navy to give it a blue water capability.
An aircraft carrier is "a reflection of a nation's
comprehensive power", the country's National Defence spokesman
Col Huang Xueping said asserting that such weapons platform
were needed to meet the demands of a country's Navy.
Chinese government would seriously consider "relevant
issues" with "factors in every aspects" on building its first
ever aircraft carrier, Xueping was quoted as saying by
state-run Xinhua news agency.
Though he did not give a time frame for building the
carrier or whether the carrier would be conventional or
nuclear powered, the Chinese plans come in the wake of the
country having recently built advanced nuclear submarines.
The Chinese Navy is almost shore based and deployed in
defensive mode, but recently the Communist nation has
announced dispatching a Naval flotilla to Indian ocean to
deter pirate attacks on Chinese vessels in the Gulf of Aden.
An aircraft carrier would allow Chinese Navy to cover
wide expanses of oceans which presently are out of reach of
its shore based Air Force.
In 1985, China purchased an Australian carrier HMAS
Melbourne. Although the hull was scrapped, Chinese technicians
studied the ship and built a replica of its flight deck for
pilot training.
Beijing purchased two former Soviet carriers the
Minsk in 1998 and the Kiev in 2000. Neither carrier was made
operational; instead, they were used as floating military
theme parks. Nevertheless, both provided design information to
China's Navy engineers.
But in 1998 China purchased the ex-Varyag, a
Kuznetsov-class Soviet carrier that was only 70 percent
complete at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse.
Chinese engineers carried out extensive refurbishment
of the unfinished carrier and even expressed interest in
deploying Russia's Su-33 fighter on it.
According to experts citing the Communist Party's
dossier said, China has also been pushing ahead with
construction of a mega-sized nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
to be completed in 2020.
"China has a long coastline and the sacred duty of
China's armed forces is to safeguard the country's marine
safety and sovereignty over coastal areas and territorial
seas," the spokesman said.
The spokesman was giving details of the deployment of
three Chinese Naval warships to deter pirates attack off
Somalia. The ships would head for the Somali region on Friday.
"The deployment of the Chinese navy off the Somali
coast was inline with UN resolutions," said Huang, adding it
would "play a positive role in safeguarding peace and security
in that area."
The warships on the mission are armed with special
forces, helicopters and plans to share information with other
countries working in the area, he added.
Bureau Report