Posted on 03/05/2002 8:40:46 AM PST by rightwing2
London Times
March 5, 2002
China Pays £17m For Giant Soviet Carrier
By Oliver August in Beijing
CHINA has taken delivery of a Ukrainian aircraft carrier and will try to copy the decommissioned vessel in an attempt to expand its naval power. A Chinese shipyard confirmed yesterday the arrival of the carrier in the northern port city of Dalian, where military experts are expected to use the vessel as a template for China’s own carrier design. The 1,000ft Varyag is the largest of at least three former Soviet carriers acquired by China. All the vessels were bought by private companies, allegedly with links to the military, which invited naval architects from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to inspect them.
A Western diplomat in Beijing said: "They already have a design on their computers ready for the day when they decide to build their own carrier. They will extract the best parts of the Varyag’s design and add them to their own." The Varyag, built a decade ago, was towed from the Black Sea around the Cape to the Yellow Sea. The Soviet Navy never finished building the vessel owing to a lack of funds after the end of the Cold War. The hull is not fitted with any electronic or hydraulic equipment. It was supposed to be turned into a casino in Macau, according to the official Chinese buyer, a company called Chong Lot that has no known links to the gaming sector but has been linked to the military. When Macau awarded new casino licences last month, Chong Lot was not among successful bidders.
Analysts believe that instead the PLA could use the Varyag as a training platform for carrier take-offs and landings. The purchase and towing of the carrier has cost about £17.5 million, probably making it too expensive for use as an entertainment facility. China paid the Ukrainian Government £14 million for the hull and the Turkish Government at least £210,000 as a transit fee. The towing is said to have cost between £2 million and £3.5 million. China’s other two decommissioned ex-Soviet carriers have been turned into floating amusement parks moored in the coastal cities of Shenzhen and Tianjin. Under pressure from Washington, the carriers were stripped of their most sensitive technology before Beijing was able to buy them.
Robert Karniol, the Asia editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: "The Chinese haven’t seen this type of carrier before and it could be very useful to them. They are trying to vacuum up as much knowhow as they can." Beijing has long harboured plans to build aircraft carriers to catch up with the United States in terms of power projection. Liu Huaqing, a recently retired senior general who fought with Chairman Mao in the 1930s, has spoken of the 21st century as the "century of the sea" and called for rapid naval modernisation. In response, the US Navy has said that Chinese plans could upset the regional balance of power. Independent experts say, however, that the launch of a Chinese carrier is still many years away. China’s shipyards are believed to be able to build carrier hulls, but not the catapults to launch and recover aircraft. However, former Soviet naval architects may be available to help.
Given that China does not practice free trade, how does free trade help it? China has opened its markets to FOREIGN trade, not FREE trade. Moreover, I cannot help but imagine that China had shipyards before Nixon's visit. If the US never traded one single thing with China ever, they would still have an aircraft carrier. England, France and India all have one. It ain't that big of a deal, especially as littoral warfare will be the key to a naval war with China.
Japan, as an island nation, always had a long naval tradition. What you are referring to is the introduction of British advisors during the Meiji Restoration. Between 1875-1905, Japan built a fleet that beat Russia, a third rate naval power, at the Tsushima Straits. The US Navy is not a third rate naval power, and China is not an island nation with a warrior class, training from the world's top navy, and a long history of seafaring.
The US GDP has grown mightily since Reagan was president. In that case, might I ask where your evidence of US economic decline may be found? I assume, that you mean the manufacturing sector, as most Luddites do. In that case, manufacturing, as a percent of GDP, has declined only slightly. Let's take a peek at the last fifteen years, as trade with China took off. In 1988, US manufacturing totalled a $888.6B contribution to GDP. By 2000, that number had risen to $1566.6B. Not too bad, eh? The big drop is in manufacturing employment, not output. In that case, I would submit to you that economic development has also caused thousands of blacksmiths and carriage makers to lose their jobs, as well. Should we bring back the horse and buggy to save those manufacturing jobs?
I tried looking up "Cobet" on Google. Most of what came back was for a German university professor. Did you mean "Colbert", the French physiocrat? Or, is there a first name that would help me in my search?
BTW, what does it matter that Ricardo was Jewish? I'd be glad to explain to you the math behind Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage. Can you tell me why he is wrong? Moreover, since when is the freedom to trade with whomever one wishes a left-wing idea? Last I checked, personal economic freedom was a conservative thing.
Last, but not least, I cannot recall from all of my days in Constitutional law class where there is a reference to fair trade and a rejection of free trade. Could you enlighten me?
My guess is if they get them built, they won't have the money to operate them. China's economy is in deep do-do, with 20% unemployment, which is expected to increase by 30% a year for the next decade at least. Moreover to keep their membership in the WTO they are going to have to do some serious reforms, which will hit the old state owned businesses really hard. That will exacerbate the problem.
Finally if the get them built, and they can afford to run them, they have no experience in actually running and maintaining them. I expect they would be about as effective against the US Navy as the Argentine aircraft carrier was against the Brits in '82.
How do you say "big expensive slow-moving target" in Chinese?
Perhaps you remember it that way, but non-subjectively America was poorer in virtually every way.
Lower GNP, lower GNP per capita, lower real income per capita adjusted for inflation, lower per capita productivity.
During the 1940's only 70 to 80 percent of homes had running water, indoor toilets and electric lights. Whither you think so or not we are doing much better these days:)
source: The State of Humanity by Julian L. Simon 1995.
It's based on Chinese history.
Dream on! The ChiCom government is growing stronger and more entrenched in power every day thanks to US trade and appeasement policies providing them with $100 billion a year to increase their police state apparatus and build up their military.
Uh-huh. And that means that the various elites will have lots of troops to rent service from.
Who exactly, do you think the PLA will be fighting in the streets?
Other PLA troops.
The people you say?
No, and I never did, either.
What do you think will be the outcome of such a fight?
Of the fight I'm projecting? An interesting correlation of forces here. In one corner, the noveau riche of Shanghai will have a technology edge; the Chinese agrarian elites have dang near bottomless pools of manpower; and the Manchurian industrial fat-cats have factories of varying capability and unknown provenance. The wild card: which way will the Second Artillery Corps jump?
Think of Tianamenn a hundred times over, a thousand, ney ten thousand times over (100 million civilian dead) because that is the number of dead Chinaman the Butchers of Beijing are willing to sacrifice in order to maintain Communism's hold on power.
It will be the elites of Shanghai versus the elites of Beijing (who basically hail from the Agrarian China) versus the elites of the Manchurian industrial regions. And they will have army units to command--because they will BUY their services (corruption is becoming a way of life in the PLA). Think Stalingrad a thousand times over.
You fail to comprehend the Asian mind.
Your ascribing one monolithic mindset to all of Asia shows that you don't come even close to understanding any "Asian mind" except the picture you paint for yourself.
The ChiComs place far less value on human life than we do.
That tends to make a civil war far more likely instead of less likely when the wheels come off--think of how the civil war in Yugoslavia got started, with Communist elites deciding to exploit ethnic differences to maintain their grip on power (there are significant ethnic differences between the major groups in China--and those ethnic faultlines dovetail nicely with the economic ones).
They already have killed a minimum of 60 million of their people in the past five decades (not counting the 66 million-odd forced abortions and infanticides they commit each and every year using 1986 figures).
In short, the various Chinese elites suffer from mass psychosis. Again, this does not make compromise and consensus very likely.
They kill hundreds of thousands of political and religious dissidents every year in the laogai death camps which hold between 7 and 20 million prisoners.
And how will this bloody-mindedness towards those who disagree prevent a civil war when the elites have enough differences for a falling out?
What makes you think that they will hesitate to kill a few million more in the streets of Beijing.
Nothing. That's why there will be a civil war, DUH!
Let me guess: your IRA was in such gems as Global Crossing and Enron because you were gullible enough to believe their prospectuses. China is simply Enron writ large.
The Argentines didn't have an aircraft carrier in 1982.
Bzzt. Wrong answer.
They did have a ship known as the General Belgrano which was an old US light cruiser which was dispatched in rapid fashion by a British sub.
Word is that the person MOST annoyed by the sinking of the General Belgrano was the skipper of the British sub stalking the 25 de Mayo--the Argentine aircraft carrier that didn't exist. The Argentine Navy made a U-turn and headed right on home. Watch--after the first "flaming datum," the ChiCom navy will head home--because although the crews are cheap, the ships are expensive.
China will increase its defense expenditures for national defense by 25.2 billion yuan this year, an increase of 17.6 percent from last year, Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng said Wednesday.........
Folks, unless you've been to the PRC and seen the growth and the absolutely massive upsurge in both high tech and low tech businesses (all of which can produce war fighting gear if commandeered to do so), then I would urge against writing off the PRC as a formidible future enemy.
Couple all of that with their increasingly tight military cooperation with Russia, and the potential for the Russian nuclear forces to be coordinated with the PLA capabilities to form the core of a Trans-Asian Axis, and you have the makings of something that has not been seen since the 1940s. And, unlike the disparate powers who only became an axis after the start of war back then, here we have, with core players the PRC and Russia, along with their various (in many cases commmon) "clients", what we see to be indeed The Trans-Asian Axis.
Why are so many Americans so hesitant to confront this? Do we always have to wait until we are literally hit over the head with geopolitical reality for our typically isolationist and doubt benefitting naivete to be shattered? What would it take for us to adopt a more proactive approach to preparing for the inevitable next great powers conflict? Just some food for thought...
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