Its launching occurs in the middle of strong Sino-American tensions around Taiwan. Hostile to the rapprochement between the island and the United States, the Chinese navy has several times passed its aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait.
Le Monde with AFP
After Liaoning and Shandong, Fujian. China officially launched, Friday, June 17, the Fujian, its third aircraft carrier during a ceremony organized during the launching of the building in a Shanghai shipyard, announced the agency Official China New.
With the Shandong, admitted to the active service in December 2019, is the second aircraft carrier to be entirely manufactured by China. The first Chinese aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was built by the former USSR and bought in Ukraine. He had been admitted to the active service in 2012 and mainly served as a training platform. The accumulated knowledge then served to build the Shandong, a classic (and non-nuclear) shipping ship which can take around forty planes, according to experts.
The Fujian is supposed to be much more technologically advanced than its predecessors. Like them, he bears the name of a Chinese province. It will only be awarded to naval forces after several tests at sea. China Nouvelle has not specified the scheduled date for the entry into the building service, but it will not be immediate and should intervene in the coming years .
Public television CCTV showed hundreds of members of the navy in shirt, cap and white pants applaud in row, in front of the aircraft carrier decorated with garlands and pennants under the music of a fanfare.
Power message to the Pacific residents
With such a ship, it also sends a message of power to the United States, the Taiwanese authorities and local residents of the Southern China Sea. Its launching occurs in the middle of strong Sino-American tensions around Taiwan, the island populated by 24 million inhabitants which China considers its historic territory. Hostile to the rapprochement of Taiwanese with the United States in recent years, the Chinese navy has several times pass its aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait, which separates the Chinese continent from the island territory.
This new ship should also be perceived with distrust by resident countries (Japan, Philippines, Vietnam in particular), with which the Asian giant has territorial disputes in the Eastern or southern China Sea. China has growing economic interests abroad, which it will be led to secure.
The main developments in this third Chinese aircraft carrier compared to the previous two are that it is much larger and that it has a catapulting system, according to China Nouvelle. The first Chinese aircraft carriers had only a spring springboard, but the catapultation allows planes to take a greater reserve of fuel and armament. The catapulting system will be electromagnetic, underlined China Nouvelle, a advanced technique.
According to Janes, the Reference Agency for Military Information, the United States is by far first for the number of aircraft carriers currently in service (11), before China (2), the United Kingdom ( 2), Russia (1), France (1), Italy (1), India (1) and Thailand (1).