Guangdong, China: Satellite images show a new mysterious aircraft carrier built during breakneck naval expansion

Hong-Kong
CNN
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China appears to have built a new and unusual aircraft carrier, intriguing experts with a potentially unique ship that could further boost Beijing’s rapidly growing maritime power.

Satellite images from Planet Labs show a ship with a large, open flat roof under construction at Guangzhou Shipyard International on Longxue Island, southern Guangdong province.

This potential new aircraft carrier “has a somewhat unusual shape and size – much smaller than the Chinese Navy’s previous aircraft carriers,” said Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander and now a fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

But the ship is even smaller than the Type 075 amphibious assault ships used by Beijing’s navy, indicating that China may be building the world’s first “apparently civilian aircraft carrier” as a kind of oceanographic research ship,” Shugart added.

The existence of the new ship was first reported by The war zone.

China has been churning out increasingly advanced warships at a feverish pace, often matching American aviation technology.

The Fujian aircraft carrier – by far China’s largest, most modern and most powerful aircraft carrier to date – went towards the sea for its first trials earlier this year, with experts saying it could join the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) fleet by 2026.

The 80,000-ton aircraft carrier is dwarfed by the PLAN’s two active aircraft carriers, the 66,000-ton Shandong and the 60,000-ton Liaoning, putting it in the supercarrier class. Only the US Navy operates aircraft carriers larger than the Fujian.

China has also made rapid progress in construction the world’s largest amphibious assault shipaccording to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

The cockpit, called Type 076, covers about 260 by 52 meters (170 feet), amounting to more than 13,500 square meters – almost the area of ​​three American football fields, the think tank said in its analysis of satellite images.

The Shanghai-built Fujian aircraft carrier and the Type 076 are the crown jewels of a military expansion that has seen Beijing grow its navy into the world’s largest, with more than 340 warships to his name.

But the construction of a new aircraft carrier-type ship in southern China could mark another shift toward Beijing’s proclaimed “military-civil fusion strategy that leverages things like dual-use civil-military ships,” according to Shugart, the former submarine commander.

The ship potentially provides “a low-cost addition to the PLA Navy’s operational capabilities in a low-threat environment and its logistics capabilities,” said Carl Schuster, former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

Given its lightweight construction, the ship could serve as a helicopter or drone carrier for the Chinese Coast Guard, which is increasingly deployed as a quasi-military force, Schuster said.

“Possession of an aviation platform would expand the Coast Guard’s surveillance capabilities in the distant waters of the southern South China Sea and potentially east of Taiwan,” Schuster added.

China launched large-scale military exercises earlier in October around Taiwan, with a record number of fighter jets and other warplanes flying around the island. The one-day military exercises, the latest in a series of recent war games waged by Beijing against its neighbor, saw unprecedented involvement by coast guard ships operating in areas around Taiwan and the remote islands of Matsu and Dongyin, near China’s southeastern coast. coast.

“The new flattop would be an important addition to any Coast Guard quarantine enforcement operation as may have been conducted two weeks ago and over the past two years,” Schuster said.

Beijing has become more assertive in its home region, using the military to assert and intimidate its claims in the South China Sea. Taiwan – a self-governing democracy that the ruling Chinese Communist Party has vowed to take, if necessary by force.

But the new ship could also be very useful in a humanitarian sense, providing rapid and cost-effective relief and evacuation in non-combat situations, Schuster said.

“It could also serve as a logistics support and repair ship in an amphibious operation once the beach was secured,” the expert added.

“It is too vulnerable to enter a disputed beach area, but in desperate situations they may consider doing so.”

According to state news service Xinhua, the Liaoning and Shandong completed their first-ever dual-carrier exercises in late October, in another demonstration of China’s growing naval power.

An aerial photo of the exercise showed the two aircraft carriers side by side, with fighter jets overhead and at least 11 carrier support ships following behind them.

The exercise, which was conducted in the South China Sea, aimed to enhance the integrated combat capability of the aircraft carrier formations and was part of the regular combat training of the Liaoning aircraft carrier formation on the high seas, Xinhua said.

Schuster, the former U.S. Navy captain, called the exercise “another indicator of the PLA Navy’s growing maritime capabilities.”

“Twin carrier operations add an additional level of complexity to a fleet’s operations,” he said, adding the exercise allowed the fleet to test logistics requirements and coordinate communications between ships in the fleet.

The state-run Global Times quoted a Chinese naval expert, Song Zhongping, as saying the exercise allowed the two airlines to “complement each other’s strengths and consolidate their advantages.”

“The Liaoning and the Shandong may have different numbers of aircraft, different escort ships and thus different capabilities for air defense, anti-submarine and anti-ship operations,” Song said in the Global Times report.