A top Chinese military official has confirmed that Beijing is building an aircraft carrier, marking the first acknowledgement of the ship’s existence from China’s secretive armed forces.
In an exclusive interview published on Tuesday, the Hong Kong Commercial Daily quoted Chen Bingde (陳炳德), chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as saying the 300m refurbished Soviet carrier “is being built, but it has not been completed.”
He declined to elaborate, although there has been wide speculation that the vessel was nearly finished after the ship, then called the Varyag, was reportedly purchased in 1998. It is currently based in Dalian.
The ship, which an expert on China’s military has said would be used for training and as a model for a future indigenously-built ship, was originally built for the Soviet navy. Construction was interrupted by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The paper quoted anonymous sources as saying the carrier would be launched by the end of this month at the earliest.
Qi Jianguo (戚建國), assistant to the chief of the PLA’s general staff, told the newspaper that the carrier would not enter other nations’ territories, in accordance with Beijing’s defensive military strategy.
“All of the great nations in the world own aircraft carriers — they are symbols of a great nation,” he was quoted as saying.
However, China is involved in a number of simmering marine territorial disputes.
China has claimed mineral rights around the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and argued that foreign navies cannot sail through the area without Beijing’s permission.
In September, Japan and China clashed over the disputed Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, located in the East China Sea.
Meanwhile, China stepped up criticism of the Philippines yesterday in a fresh exchange of invective over disputed waters, calling on Manila to stop infringing its sovereignty with irresponsible claims over the South China Sea.
“China demands that the Philippines stop unilateral actions that damage China’s sovereignty and interests at sea and could lead to the expansion and complication of the South China Sea dispute, and stop issuing irresponsible comments that are inconsistent with facts,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said.
The comments, posted on the ministry’s Web site late on Tuesday, were China’s most vitriolic in weeks of tension as the Philippines has denounced what it says is the increasing assertiveness of Chinese ships in the region. On Tuesday, it cited the US’ stake in the stability and security of the world’s second-busiest sea lane.
Hong said China had stood by its position for centuries. Conducting missions and patrols by Chinese vessels in waters under Chinese jurisdiction was “completely reasonable.”
Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all claim territories in the sea, which covers an important shipping route and is thought to hold untapped oil and gas reserves.
China’s claim is to most of the sea’s 1.7 million square kilometers, including the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.
Manila has accused China of intrusions into its territory, citing six instances, including one in March when two Chinese patrol boats tried to ram a survey ship.
Vietnamese officials have also complained about Chinese activity in the contested waters, accusing Chinese patrol boats of harassing an oil-exploration ship conducting a seismic survey 120km off Vietnam’s south-central coast.
One incident this month, in which Chinese vessels placed a buoy and posts in a part of the sea it claims, spurred protests in the cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese