China Plans World's Second-Largest Carrier Fleet

China began arming its first aircraft carrier, the Shi Yang, earlier this year as a preliminary step to beginning sea trials. However, sources inside the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have revealed that the Shi Yang would only be China's first aircraft carrier, and that others will appear in Chinese service in the next decade.

When the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) commissions the Shi Yang, it will enter a rarefied group in world politico-military affairs. While 11 countries have aircraft carriers, only a few of these carriers are capable of project real airpower. Italy, Spain, Brazil, Thailand, India and even the United Kingdom operate either only helicopters or a mix of helicopters and aged Harrier jumpjets from their carriers. While the UK plans to build two modern carriers and upgrade its fleet air arm in the future, at the present time only the United States, Russia and France operate carriers with modern, high-powered combat aircraft. This is the group China, with its navalized Su-30 copies, will join shortly.

However, the Shi Yang is a reconditioned Russian carrier dating back to the Cold War, the Varyag. The future of Chinese carrier ambitions lies in its homegrown design. China was supposed to have used experience drawn from refurbishing the Shi Yang into building a pair of indigenous 50,000-ton aircraft carriers starting in 2009. The completion of the Shi Yang has suffered from numerous delays, so it these two carriers may or may not have started construction. However, if the Chinese have not begun building these new carriers yet, they will start construction soon.

After the two sisters of the Shi Yang are complete, the Chinese are supposed to start construction on a new nuclear-powered class of 60,000-ton carriers. These vessels would draw on the designs of the never-built Soviet-era Ulyanovsk class.

If all goes according to plan, the PLAN would field a fleet of five aircraft carriers by the 2020s. Put into perspective, by that time the Royal Navy should have two 65,000-ton carriers and the French Navy a 75,000-ton carrier and a 45,000-ton carrier. The Indian Navy plans more carriers, but not five of them. This should make the PLAN the world's second-most powerful navy, after the United States and it's 11 100,000-ton+ super carriers.