In my opinion, although China is intent on building a blue water navy, it would definitely look at American reaction wen it comes to developin an aircraft carrier. Sure, it wants secure energy supply, that is one of the reasons behind China's attempt to establish friendly relationship with countries like Myanmar, Iran and African nations, to have a series of ports to base their growing fleet of blue water naval vessels that will operate in foreign waters in 3 or 4 decades time. But as of now, there is no need to encourage futher fears and unease amongst American congressmen and China's neighbours (much of which is intensely brewing already, due to China's current progress). China knos it needs power projection, but what they want rite now is the ability to
gradually ]come up with something on par with the Americans that it will not disturb the balance (or imbalance, dependin on your perspective) of military power in the Asia-Pacific region.
That is the reason y China is not constructin 5 or 6 hulls of every new ship they've constructed in the past 5 years (and they've constructed quite a few new ones, the Song class subs, Type 052B Luyang Class Destroyers, Type 052C LuyangII destroyer, Type 051C destroyer, Type 054 Jiangkai FFG, all of which r relatively modern, c
www.sinodefence.com for technical details justifyin my analogy). They kno that its not good for the economy, or China's national interest.
Besides, China doesn't have a large amount of crews or leaders experienced in dealing with such high-tech equipment anyway. China wants more R&D, traing and logistics building, until one day, wen the time is rite (eg: China's economy is firmly in front of US, with its economy less dependent on exports and foreign imports of high-tech gears, which may take quite a while), it could realise its dream of power projection by buildin ships that will not become obsolete in 2-3 years time, without riskin some catastrophic backlash from the US.
And yes, like i've said before, assymettric warfare through political pressure is China's best strategy yet, a strategy that no doubt creates fear and tension. The telling-half-truths-and-no-verification is part of that political intimidation strategy. The sense of dealing with the unknown would put China's potential rivals on edge, and Beijing sees very clearly where this mite b heading if they decide to pop the bubble by constructin aircraft carriers like there's no tomoro.
The Chinese leadership already sees very clearly that its neighbours r now attemptin to form some sort of safety net to protect themselves by formin closer relationships (ie: Singh's visit to Japan), but the Chinese leadership is also aware that its neighbours kno that China in the near future will not attempt the kind of Cold War situation between the US and the USSR. There is just too much to lose and too little to gain for China to do such a thing (considerin the link between the welfare of the Chinese economy and the US economy, both will suffer if anyone puts a toe out of line). The kind of economic shape i've hypothesised earlier is the one in which China can finally achieve a reasonable power projection, and even though current predictions r that China will become a premium economic power if current trends continue in 2 decades times, it'd b too optimistic to say that China will, in that same time frame, b able to achieve the kinda power projection the CCP want.
And for those of u who would point out that the majority of the stuff i've said did not contain much on the aircraft carrier plan itself, its my belief that the general economic and political circumstances surrounding the plan r important in influencin its development, which is y i believe China will not attempt any massive Aircraft carrier power projection in the next few years to come.
