(JustPatriots.com)- A critical military development for China was the Friday launch of the Asian powerhouse’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier.
This comes amid rising hostilities between China and the US over Beijing’s belligerent rhetoric toward Taiwan, which it sees as a renegade province that should be annexed by force if necessary.
President Xi Jinping has pledged to establish a “fully modern” force to compete with the US military by 2027, and his People’s Liberation Army has undergone a significant revamp.
According to CCTV, the new carrier, Fujian, is the first catapult aircraft carrier entirely conceived and built in China.
As water jets arced over the enormous ship to commemorate its launch, rows of sailors wearing white uniforms cheered beneath colorful smoke clouds.
Its flight deck was decorated with colorful streamers and enormous banners that read, “Strive for the comprehensive building of a first-class navy.”
The carrier’s debut represents a significant turning point for the Chinese military.
The official Xinhua news agency said it had substantially more sophisticated technology than China’s two existing carriers, including electromagnetic catapults to propel planes off its deck.
The Liaoning and the Shandong, the other carriers, take off from a ramp that resembles a ski jump.
Additionally, it is comparable in size to the supercarriers of the US Navy, according to Xinhua, with a displacement of more than 80,000 tonnes.
It might be a “game-changer,” according to Collin Koh, a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
According to him, the carrier can launch aircraft faster and with greater payloads, which are crucial considerations in warfare. This is possible with the conventional flight deck’s electromagnetic catapults.
The modern carrier “marks the strategic maturation of a blue-water PLA Navy.”
Blue-water navies may travel great distances and conduct operations all over the world.
However, it will be years before the Fujian is put into use. When it starts operating, the authorities have not specified.
According to the defense journal Janes, the United States has the most active aircraft carriers with 11, followed by China and Britain with two each.
The Fujian uses conventional propulsion as opposed to the nuclear-powered supercarriers of the US Navy. Because they can operate for extended periods without docking and refueling, nuclear ships have many benefits over conventional ships.
