China's aircraft carrier ambitions: seeking truth from rumors

Naval War College Review, Wntr, 2004 by Ian Storey, You Ji

Beginning in 1997, a series of newspaper articles suggested that China had decided to build its own fleet of aircraft carriers rather than either upgrading secondhand vessels from abroad or buying new ones. In November 1997 the Far Eastern Economic Review reported that the Chinese government had shelved plans to build fixed-wing carriers in favor of smaller helicopter carriers. (12) In 1999 Singapore's Straits Times reported that the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council had earmarked 250 million yuan for the design and construction of two aircraft carriers, to be completed by 2009. (13) In 2000 the respected Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao reported that construction of China's first carrier would begin later that year and would be completed by 2003. (14) According to Ming Pao the Chinese carrier would displace forty-eight thousand tons and carry twenty-four fighters, probably Su-27Ks (Su-33s) from Russia. The cost of each vessel would be 4.8 billion yuan ($580 million).

However, to date there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any aircraft carriers are under construction in the PRC.

EX-SOVIET AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND CHINA'S R&D PROGRAM

As mentioned earlier, during the early 1990s China repeatedly sought to buy aircraft carriers from the former Soviet Union. By 2000 it had managed to acquire three: Minsk, Kiev, and Varyag. How these vessels were acquired and the purposes to which they have been put make interesting reading.

In 1975 the USSR commissioned the Kiev, the first of a new class of forty-thousand-ton carriers designed to provide organic fighter cover for the Soviet navy. Between 1978 and 1984 three more Kiev-class carriers were commissioned: Minsk (1978), Novorossiysk (1982), and Admiral Gorshkov (1984). Kiev-class carriers (referred to by the Russians as "heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers") were conventionally powered and capable of carrying twelve Yak-38 Forger vertical/ short-takeoff-and-landing (VSTOL) fighters and twenty helicopters. Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the subsequent emasculation of the Russian navy, all four carriers were decommissioned.

In 1995 the Minsk and Novorossiysk were sold to South Korea for scrapping. However, in June 1998 the Minsk was purchased for five million dollars by a Chinese firm, the Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Company. (15) Before the sale went through, however, the South Korean firm stripped the warship of its armaments, engines, and communication systems and exacted a guarantee that the new vessel would not be used for military purposes. (16) The Minsk was towed to Guangdong Province, where a four-million-dollar conversion transformed the carrier into a floating museum. The vessel was moved to Shenzhen in September 2000 to form the centerpiece of the "Minsk World" theme park. For an entrance fee of eight dollars, visitors can now board the former flagship of the Soviet Pacific Fleet and see MiG fighters on the flight deck, models of antiship missiles and other weapons systems, and exhibitions on the history of the Russian navy and the Soviet space program. Visitors can also watch displays of Russian dancing in the hangar, eat at a Russian-themed restaurant, and ride on a tank on parkland in front of the vessel. According to the pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po, Minsk World is aimed at "popularising science as well as national defense education." (17) Minsk World has proved a hit with both locals and tourists alike.