Stratfor Report: China's Rising Ambitions

Recent open source intelligence reports indicate that China remains committed to the development of an operational aircraft carrier by sometime around the year 2010. In "China: The Deceptive Logic for a Carrier Fleet," private intelligence company Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) offers some candid insight on the rising ambitions of China's military.

According to Stratfor, it is easy to comprehend why the Chinese would want an aircraft carrier, given the increase in naval capability that accompanies such a technological advancement. "The British," Stratfor says, "...would never have been able to take back the Falkland Islands in 1982 without the HMS Invincible and the HMS Hermes."

The development of a an aircraft carrier capability would be an important step for China, Stratfor argues, helping the communist nation achieve the status of a great power and altering the balance of forces in the region. Additionally, the addition of an aircraft carrier to the Chinese fleet, the People's Liberation Army Navy, would give China the ability to project it power further than it has been able to in its history.

According to Stratfor's analysis, China's expanding import and export operations have spread across the globe without an accompanying naval capability to protect Chinese interests. It is this weakness that the Chinese government hopes to solve with the development of an operational aircraft carrier. Another factor contributing to China's quest for an aircraft carrier is the increasing military capability of China's neighbors in the region. According to the analysis, both South Korea and Japan have advanced U.S.-made naval systems and Japan possesses top-of-the-line U.S. fighter aircraft.

The People's Liberation Army Navy has pursued other military advances as well, Stratfor analysts say. Missile technology and nuclear submarine propulsion have been at the forefront of Chinese efforts recently as well. These pursuits, which Stratfor describes as more realistic for China, could suffer from an aggressive pursuit of aircraft carrier technology.

The analysis surmises that the development and deployment of an operational aircraft carrier will be perceived by the world as evidence of China's ambitions that will inevitably draw more scrutiny from the United States and from China's neighbors. In conclusion, the analysis says, the Chinese will incur costs elsewhere within their naval establishment that will offset any benefits that might be gained from the development of a basic aircraft carrier capability.

The full analysis can be viewed on the Strategic Forecasting web site.

Source: Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Analysis, August 7, 2007