Oh the Irony, China announces the launch of it’s first aircraft carrier, just as the UK winds up without any. Have they got ours? No apparently it’s an ex-Russian navy carrier, refitted by the Chinese, presumably powered by crushed soft toys, all controlled from the bridge fitted with a range of knock off iPads. Still I wouldn’t like to be caught straying into the wrong waters by them!
The newly refurbished carrier docked in Dalian Port. More to the point - LOOK at the size of that crane behind it! They don't mess about the Chinese... You should see the size of the lorry that brought the carrier to the dock!!
There’s an interesting, if slightly worrying quote from a Reuters article about the launch:
“An aircraft carrier is the mark of major powers,” Pan Chunli, a 29-year-old IT technician in Beijing told Reuters. “China has grown dramatically. The whole world should take a fresh look at China, viewing it as a rising power that it has the ability to defend its rights and territory.”
Followed by an astonishingly patronising one from the Andrew Erickson of the U.S. Naval War College and Gabriel Collins, a security analyst:
“A newly-wed couple wants a ‘starter home’, a new great power wants a ‘starter carrier’,” wrote in a note about the carrier launch”…. “China’s ‘starter carrier’ is of very limited military utility, and will primarily serve to confer prestige on a rising great power, to help the military master basic procedures, and to project a bit of power”. (www.andrewerickson.com)
Oh well, it’s good to know that just like the megayacht arms race for billionnaires, the world’s governments are driven by the same basic desire to outdo each other with the size of their… err weapons. Still at least if China starts developing a whole battlegroup of eye-wateringly expensive carriers, they might have to start putting up their taxes closer to something like the level that people and businesses are burdened with here in the UK. That might help with the trade deficit, though it’s shame the Chinese don’t want be lured into a competition about who can have the most expensive social care and human rights programs.
Read more on the carrier launch and sea trials here.
