Yhello!! FRink!
For anyone who thinks that the ChiComs are remotely interested in helping us with the DPRK:
Aircraft Carrier for PLA Navy
In mid-May 2002, the South China Morning Post and some other Hong Kong papers published a series of reports regarding the Varyag aircraft carrier that had just arrived in China. The reports can be compressed into the following:
The aircraft carrier, built by Nikolayev Shipyard in Ukraine, owned by a Hong Kong firm and initially intended to be used as a floating casino and hotel, came in May 2002 to Dalian Shipyard, one of the largest and most advanced in China, after being towed for 110 days by tugboats halfway around the world. The Varyag was bought for $20 million in 1998.
The ship is surrounded in Dalian with heavy security, which bars civilian access; police officers flank the shipyard entrance. This has fueled speculation that the Varyag is being used by the Chinese military in an attempt to build its first operational aircraft carrier.
Varyag no longer has the nuclear reactors that were installed by the Ukrainian state-run Generating Systems of Crimea. Presently 70 percent complete, Varyag weighs only 33,600 tons. Construction on this Kuznetzov-class carrier was started in 1985, but work ceased in 1992 after the Soviet Union's collapse and the ship's transfer to the Ukrainian government, which could not find the exorbitant $200 million to finish the construction. (end of messages)
After getting this information, the author came to the conclusion that (a) the probability of Varyag becoming PLAN's (PLA Navy's) first aircraft carrier could be estimated as about 70 percent, and (b) this project could be completed by 2006.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/22/204248.shtml
The original article was written in 2002.
It's now 4 years later.
What do you wanna bet the ChiComs will announce to the world they have an aircraft carrier the minute we try to move our navy from Japan to blockade the DPRK?