BANGKOK: China has commissioned its latest aircraft carrier after extensive sea trials, state media reported Friday, adding a ship that experts say will help what is already the world’s largest navy expand its power farther beyond its own waters.
The official Xinhua news agency said the Fujian had been commissioned Wednesday at a naval base on southern China’s Hainan island in a ceremony attended by top leader Xi Jinping.
The Fujian is China’s third carrier and the first that it both designed and built itself. It is perhaps the most visible example so far of Xi’s massive military overhaul and expansion that aims to have a modernized force by 2035 and one that is “world class” by mid century — which most take to mean capable of going toe-to-toe with the United States.
With it, Beijing takes another step toward closing the gap with the U.S. Navy and its carrier fleet and network of bases that allow it to maintain a presence around the world.
“Carriers are key to Chinese leadership’s vision of China as a great power with a blue-water navy,” or one that can project power far from its coastal waters, said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
For China’s navy, one goal is to dominate the near waters of the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea around the so-called First Island Chain, which runs south through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. But deeper into the Pacific, it also wants to be able to contest control of the Second Island Chain, where the U.S. has important military facilities on Guam and elsewhere, Poling said.
“A carrier doesn’t really help you in the First Island Chain, but it’s key to that contest, if you want one, with the Americans in the wider Indo-Pacific,” Poling said.
China’s “increasingly capable military” and ability to “project power globally” is one of the reasons the Pentagon in its latest report to Congress continued to call it “the only competitor to the United States with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order.”
At the same time, it is Beijing’s right to “transform its navy into a blue-water strategic navy commensurate with China’s national strength,” said Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military affairs expert.
“China’s carriers cannot just operate near home, they must operate in the distant oceans and far seas to carry out various training and support missions,” Song said. “China is a great power and our overseas interests span the globe; we need to be globally present.”
News that the Fujian had been commissioned was met with wariness in nearby Japan. Minoru Kihara, a former defense minister and now chief cabinet secretary in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s new government, said it underscores that China is “extensively and rapidly strengthening its military power without transparency.”
“We believe that China’s military intends to advance its operational capability at distant sea and air by strengthening sea power,” he told reporters, emphasizing that Japan was watching China’s military activity and would “calmly but decisively respond” if necessary.
