China test-sailed its first aircraft carrier on August 10, 2011. The maiden sail was remarkably low key, but its significance is far-reaching.
China's journey to this début started in the mid-1990s when it approached Ukraine for the possibility of acquiring the half-built, but practically abandoned, Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag. The keel of this hulk was laid in 1985 and the ship was intended to serve in the Soviet Pacific Fleet, however, the construction was abruptly halted with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ukraine, home to the Soviet Union's warship industry, kept the unfinished carrier as a "divorce asset," but it had no money or need to complete the project. China eventually acquired the ship with a $20 million auction bid in 1998. At the time, this sea monster was literally an empty and rusty shell, since all of the critical equipment had been removed, including the rudder. China, however, was determined to bring it back to life.
Over the next 3 years, China went out of its way to negotiate with Turkey for the passage of Varyag from the Black Sea through the Bosporus, with China providing a bizarre assurance for safety and offering lucrative economic incentives to Turkey. In November 2001, this floating colossal was safely towed through the Istanbul Strait. It continued its nerve-racking journey through the Mediterranean Sea, and then over the rough waters around Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Pacific, finally arriving in China's northern port city of Dalian, next to the Chinese Naval Academy, the cradle of China's naval officers, in March 2002.
It took the Chinese almost 10 years to refurbish the warship, with undisclosed, but understandable additional expenses and tremendous effort. A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson humbly reported that the Varyag would make short test sails in the next year or so. He also admitted that when the carrier becomes fully operational, it would be commissioned to the Chinese Navy as a training platform; this diesel and steam-powered aircraft carrier, after all, has limited capacity for distant battle missions.
Why does China want to acquire a weapon system that is expensive to build and operate, with mostly known potential, and is increasingly vulnerable to anti-ship weapons? What is China's real intent for becoming an "aircraft carrier-faring great power"? Will the days when China's aircraft carrier battle groups have a routine presence in the Western Pacific and beyond ever come?
Military Modernization with Chinese Characteristics
China set its military modernization in motion in the mid-1990s, but ahead of its overall modernization schedule and due to urgent imperatives. The most telling reason for the change was the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995-96, during which China found itself in a desperate situation to acquire credible military capability to prevent Taiwan from seeking independence and to deal with an almost assured U.S. military intervention. During this tense situation, the two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups dispatched by the Clinton administration to the troubled waters were viewed by the Chinese as quite an insult.
Another motivation for Chinese modernization stemmed from the challenge presented by the U.S.-led revolution in military affairs in the evolving information age. The display of U.S. military power in the Gulf War of 1991, the Kosovo air campaign of 1999, and the anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s so shocked the Chinese leaders that they felt China must take urgent measures or be marginalized in military affairs for good.
