The Ministry of National Defense said yesterday it was closely monitoring the launch of China’s first aircraft carrier and China’s carrier development program, while Taiwanese observers described the milestone for China’s navy as mostly symbolic.
The Varyag “left its shipyard in Dalian Port in northeast Liaoning Province on Wednesday morning to start its first sea trial,” Xinhua news agency reported, describing the trip as a tentative test run for the unfinished ship.
The aircraft carrier, which is about 300m long, ploughed through fog and sounded its horn three times as it left the dock, Xinhua said on its military news microblog.
Photo: Reuters
Ministry spokesman David Lo (羅紹和) said the ministry has consistently kept close tabs on China’s aircraft carrier development project and all related activities.
“We will continue to collect more information about all follow-up developments,” Lo said.
Former deputy defense minister Lin Chong-pin (林中斌) said there were three primary reasons why China is developing aircraft carriers.
The first, it is economical, to protect Chinese oil tankers passing through the Indian Sea. Second, it is militaristic diplomacy to form a navy fleet by combining the army, navy and air force. Third and most importantly, it is to project itself as a major power and to protect nationalist sentiment, at the same time satisfying the emotional needs of the people.
Rather than being able to convey actual military might, the Varyag should be seen as a psychological symbol of a strengthening Chinese identity, Lin said, adding that Beijing did not intend to use the Varyag against Taiwan as “there is no need.”
Lin said the addition of the aircraft carrier, along with other Chinese-developed vessels including destroyers, cruisers and submarines, as well as China’s jet fighters and missiles, meant that Taiwan’s Hsiung Feng (“Brave Wind”) III anti-ship missiles and its other cruise missiles would be like “mosquitos biting an elephant” should conflict ever break out in the Taiwan Strait.
The Chinese Communist Party knows the steep price of resorting to a military solution to the cross-strait issue and although “they have not abandoned the thought, they are not prioritizing it,” Lin said, adding that China is instead resorting to using non-military means of coercion.
The military impact of the Varyag’s trial run on Taiwan in the short term is very small, but in the long term, it symbolizes the strengthening of Chinese military arsenal, he added.
If one day the two governments enter into political negotiations, Taiwan would be “half a head shorter” the moment they were seated at the table because “negotiation isn’t just bandying words, it also depends on the hard power each has,” Lin said, adding that Taiwan would have a weaker set of chips to bargain with.
Arthur Ding (丁樹範), director of National Chengchi University’s International Relations Institute, said the Varyag’s trial was symbolic.
“The sea trial was launched mainly to satisfy the 1.3 billion Chinese people’s expectations of the progress their country is making on aircraft carrier development,” Ding said.
Xinhua said “building a strong navy that is commensurate with China’s rising status is a necessary step and an inevitable choice for the country to safeguard its increasingly globalized national interests.”
Retired Chinese Navy Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo (尹卓) told state-run television that his country intended to build an air carrier group, but the task would be long and difficult.
“As for forming a carrier group, I think that will take at least 10 years,” he told a Chinese television broadcast on the carrier launch.
If Beijing is serious about having a viable carrier strike group it would need three carriers, Ashley Townshend at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney said in an interview before the debut of the vessel.
China would also have to develop support ships and aircraft for any carrier group, Townshend said.
“A single, solitary aircraft carrier floating on the sea without the accompanying forces doesn’t constitute a battle force,” said Ni Lexiong (倪樂雄), an expert on Chinese maritime policy at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. “It would be a sitting duck if you tried to send it out.”
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)