They pospone the coming out date of the carrier because of technical problems.
nope, it was a complete rumour. Anyone who saw a picture of Varyag at that time would know it wasn't ready in a week.
IIRC there was a PLA(N) destroyer port visit to Auckland, NZ either last year or earlier this year. The RNZN has IIRC done a couple of port visits to China over recent years. So that destroyer coming here would have had a long voyage to quote Bilbo Baggins "there and back again". I also know the PLA(N)was having a shoot-ex with the RAN not long ago.
yep, they have been doing that a lot recently. In fact, I've stated this to be one of the reasons that PLAN would want a carrier. It can be used for soft power. They were quite MIA in 2004 Tsunami, because they didn't have the ships. You have seen PLAN parading their new Type 920 hospital ship to countries all around Indian Ocean to promote good will. They have also sent 998 to Gulf of Aden and it could be used for disaster relief. And certainly if there is another disaster in the neighbourhood, PLAN will be able to send in a carrier to help out.
In 2006 I said it would be 5 years before she went to trials
and here we are......
very impressive. Any reason for that estimation? At that time, I was just looking at it sitting outside of Dalian and not sure what they had in plan for it.
my own view is that she's going to spend a few years as a test bed for future systems as well as the focus for a change in their navy doctrine. ie they can do "great white fleet" flag showing events as well as do symbolic show and tells around their sea lanes.
I'd very pretty surprised if their next carriers look like Varyag - and I can't see them staying with soviet/russian carrier doctrine - their maritime force development is already along the lines of the USN and NATO bluewater navies.
Soviet/Russian doctrine was about a carrier running flag as part of a surface action group - not as a carrier group in its own right.
chinese force development at both the army and maritime level is heading down western constructs, their airforce structure may still reflect russian structure, but I think you can see that its moving away from that model as well. Once they transition from GCI emphasis, then we'll see significant changes.
I can't agree with you more on this one. On the AF part, they have actually undergone a whole change in the past few years to try to move toward the Western training model. They have their own red/blue flag exercise going. PLAAF is getting confident enough about these development that they are even broadcasting it on TV now. But obviously without cooperation with Western AF, it's a lot of guess work. In fact, the recent exercise with Turkish AF was actually a great learning experience for the PLAAF pilots. I'm sure there is a lot of people at the Pentagon that's not happy about it.
As for Varyag though, do you see any military value in it after using it as test bed for the sailors and pilots? They already have a full sized model in Wuhan to train crews, test out the EM interference and such.
china 5-700 years ago used to use her navy to escort merchant fleets, so sloc protection is of high visibility while her economy is dependant on international trade etc....
Even with a carrier fleet, they'd still have a hard time with malacca straits. It's kind of interesting that they are talking to Burma about having a port to take in energy shipment. It seems to me that just protecting the energy route from Africa and Middle East to a port in Burma/Bangladesh/Pakistan would be far easier than having to protect the entire sea lane to South China.
It's not a military issue in isolation, its about latent intent
eg if France or the UK had territorial disputes in the Spratlys, had been involved with maritime disputes to the extent of exchange of fire or France and UK had decided to do a Tiananmen on protesters in the burrows or "brixton" with the corresponding outcomes, then I guess the same concerns would be leveled at them
every country makes mistakes.
3 carrier groups is not a threat to the US, but I bet its seen as concerning for the Philipines, Vietnam, Malaysia and everyone else who has claims in the Spratlys - and who have exchanged fire with the chinese over the last 30 years.
Brasil, India, Argentina, Spain, Italy all have more experience in managing carriers, but we don't see them as latent threats to their neighbours either....
I'm not sure if Vietnam/China dispute will be resolved, but I think China could get the situations resolved with other ASEAN countries. Just looking at the current Chinese economic/financial power, I think it's very reasonable to expect great economic integration of China with ASEAN countries in the future. And with the decline in American and Japanese economy, they will slowly drift out of the picture. After that, it's just the military establishment in these countries which would be more pro-Western help. China just has to learn from its mistakes of the past couple of years of throwing around its weight too much too fast and actually work something out with its neighbours. If there is any region can embrace Chinese leadership, this would be it.
It boils down to the cost-benefit analysis. Yes, CATOBAR carriers cost more but they can also do more so it really depends on how the Chinese intend to use them.
China is going completely down the USN model.
