The launch of China’s new aircraft carrier on June 17 is the latest milestone in the rapid expansion and modernization of China’s navy and comes on the heels of new developments in China’s drive to establish overseas bases.
The growth of China’s military and Beijing’s growing interest in an overseas presence illustrate China’s growing power and influence and have prompted U.S. warnings about Beijing’s intentions in the Pacific and around the world.
The Fujian carrier is the third China has added in the past decade, but the first to be entirely designed and built domestically. The Fujian is also the first to feature flat deck and electromagnetically powered catapults like those on the newest US aircraft carrier, allowing it to launch aircraft with heavier payloads and more fuel, and to do so faster.
Although not as advanced as the US’s 11 nuclear-powered carriers, the conventionally powered Fujian shows that China’s navy has broken into the top tier of fleets in terms of capability and size, with approximately 350 warships to the US fleet’s 296.
Satellite image of China’s Type 003 aircraft carrier under construction at a shipyard northeast of Shanghai, May 21, 2022. Planet Labs PBC via AP
In the coming years, the design of Chinese carriers and the limited experience of their crews will likely keep them in the Western Pacific, where Beijing is focused on Taiwan and its disputes in the East and South China Seas, but Chinese warships already have a global presence.
Chinese surface ships have been operating “for extended periods out of the Western Pacific for years,” Thomas Shugart, a naval warfare expert at the Center for a New American Security, told Insider.
Beijing recently sent its 41st escort task force to the Gulf of Aden, where it has conducted regular anti-piracy patrols since 2008. These special forces “consist of 3-4 ships and are usually gone for 3 to 4 months, spending most of that time at sea,” Shugart said. Chinese naval task forces have also circumnavigated the globe and sailed to Europe and through the Aleutian Islands.
“China has made it clear that one of its highest long-term national security priorities is to be able to maintain the security of its overseas interests as well as the security of its global maritime lines of communication,” Shugart said.
Without more overseas air and naval bases than China currently has, these carriers “will be necessary to achieve the necessary level of sea control to achieve these goals, especially in the face of a potential adversary like the U.S. Navy,” Shugart said, but reports over the past two years show that Beijing is looking for that additional base.
“They went big”
Chinese soldiers at the opening ceremony of a Chinese military base in Djibouti, August 1, 2017. STR/AFP via Getty Images
As China’s reach expands, it is seeking a “more stable” overseas base and logistics network to allow its military to “project and sustain military power over greater distances,” the US Department of Defense said in its latest report on the chinese army.
China’s only current overseas base was opened in the East African country of Djibouti in 2017. China calls it a logistics support facility and is near waters where its ships conduct anti-piracy patrols.
The Chinese base in Djibouti is also close to a major US facility, and US officials are concerned about Chinese activity there. General Stephen Townsend, the head of US Africa Command, told lawmakers in 2021 that China had expanded the base “adding a significant pier that could even support their aircraft carriers in the future.”
Opening the base in Djibouti was “a huge departure from their strategy, [which] there was no military base overseas before that,” Lyle Goldstein, an expert on the Chinese military at Defense Priorities, told Insider in a December interview.
“Not only did they go into Djibouti, they went in a lot,” Goldstein said. “This is a significant facility. It’s not just symbolic.”
China is focusing on the Indian Ocean, seeking investment in ports and other facilities related to maritime trade.
Chinese sailors wave as they approach Iran’s southeastern port city of Chahbahar, December 27, 2019. West Asia News Agency via REUTERS
China gets 40% of its fossil fuels from the Middle East. “As a result, they are interested in pursuing close, deep and economic relations with nations that border the Strait of Hormuz and [Persian] The Gulf itself so they can protect that long-term investment,” Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told lawmakers this spring.
“I believe that eventually it will move from an economic to a military component,” added McKenzie, who was then head of US Central Command.
In early 2021, US intelligence officials reportedly learned that China was secretly building what could be a military facility in the United Arab Emirates, prompting US efforts to stop the work. In late 2021, US officials were again alarmed by intelligence indicating that China was pursuing a naval base in Equatorial Guinea. The US again tried to thwart the project by sending senior officials to the West African country.
Although China is focused on economic and diplomatic engagements in Africa, it is “to a lesser extent” working in the “military domain,” Townsend told lawmakers this spring. “Their military investments are playing out in Africa. They have one overseas base there and are working hard to develop other overseas bases there.”
A base on Africa’s Atlantic coast would “bring them several thousand miles closer to the US homeland,” Townsend said at the time.
Cambodian Navy personnel at the Ream Naval Base during a government-led media tour, July 26, 2019. TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. officials are also concerned by years of work at the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, where China is funding new construction, including the demolition of U.S.-funded buildings. China and Cambodia broke ground on the base this month, days after a Chinese official told The Washington Post that “part of the base” would be used by the Chinese military.
Both countries deny that the Ream will be for exclusive use by China, but experts say it could maintain a rotational presence and allow China to project power into the Indian Ocean in a way it could not before because of its proximity to passages in The Indian Ocean. The official also told The Post that the Chinese section of the base will host a ground station for China’s BeiDou navigation satellite system, which could aid China’s efforts to support its military operations and monitor other militaries.
In its report on the Chinese military, the US Department of Defense stated that a global network of military logistics and military facilities “could both interfere with US military operations and support offensive operations against the United States” because “ China’s global military objectives are evolving’.
U.S. Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, head of the U.S. Transportation Command, told lawmakers this spring that her command is watching “China’s ability to project power around the world because that’s our area of operations.”
“I’m watching their investments in ports and their impact on our ability to maneuver around the world, their ability to disrupt and degrade our ability to project and sustain power in the Pacific,” Van Ovost said.
“What is not fair is not smart”
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