After "Liaoning" and "Shandong", China is preparing to launch a third aircraft carrier soon, in a step that represents a major development in Beijing's ability to display its naval power globally.

The prospective aircraft carrier Type 003 is larger and more technologically advanced than China's second aircraft carrier, Shandong, which is now in service.

China's first aircraft carrier

Liaoning is the first Chinese aircraft carrier, with a length of 300 meters and a tonnage of about 60,000 tons, and it can carry about 50 aircraft designed to be on board the carrier.

Liaoning was made in the former Soviet Union and was bought by Beijing in 1998 from Ukraine before its construction was completed and it renovated it.

September 2012: Beijing inaugurated the aircraft carrier in the northeastern Chinese port of Dalian, after long work of re-equipment in a Chinese naval workshop.

The Chinese aircraft carrier has a length of 300 meters and a payload of about 60,000 tons, and it can carry about 50 aircraft designed to operate on board the carrier.

At the time, the carrier was considered the most important piece in the Chinese Navy's military fleet, which consists of about 700 pieces, including 61 submarines, including 4 nuclear and bombers, 19 destroyers and 54 frigates, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

December 2016: The Chinese military conducted the first-ever live-fire exercises using Liaoning and fighter jets in the Bohai Sea in the northeast near the Korean Peninsula, and this was the Liaoning's first participation in its first real-life firing exercise.

The Chinese Ministry of Defense announced that Beijing is building a second aircraft carrier, without specifying the date of its launch.

- A report issued by the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) stated that Beijing could build many aircraft carriers over the next 15 years, noting that the aircraft carrier program is a state secret in China.

January 2017: As Sino-US relations are strained over Taiwan, China's lone aircraft carrier sails into the Pacific Ocean for the first time for exercises that the Chinese navy says are routine.

The Chinese aircraft carrier has participated in military exercises before, including exercises in the South China Sea.

Shandong

April 2017: Shandong is built at the China Shipbuilding Corporation in Dalian as China's second aircraft carrier after the Liaoning.

December 2019: Shandong is officially announced, Beijing's first domestically produced aircraft carrier.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, 4 years after it was laid in Liaoning Province, in March 2015, by Dalian Shipbuilding.

April 2021: China shows the aircraft carrier "Shandong" from the inside in a video clip.

May 2021: Shandong conducts routine annual exercises in the South China Sea.

The Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong can carry a total of 44 aircraft, including 32 combat aircraft.

The Chinese ship has electronically scanned radars with 4 antennas oriented in different paths, which have high accuracy and are more resistant to jamming, to provide carriers with air traffic control, coordinate combat operations and detect incoming threats.

The Chinese aircraft carrier is based on an incomplete Soviet "aircraft carrier cruiser" called the Varyag, which was designed to arm the surface with powerful anti-ship missiles, unlike typical carriers that rely on its onboard aircraft for offensive capability.

The carrier has a crew of 5,000 sailors, including an air wing, and a 20-decker carrier, featuring more than 12,000 different equipment systems.

"Type 003"

The newly developed 100,000-tonne aircraft carrier Type 003 with electromagnetic take-off has been built at a shipyard in Jiangnan, northeast of Shanghai, since 2018.

The length of the carrier is about 320 meters, which means that it is only 5 meters larger than the second Chinese aircraft carrier, Shandong, but at the same time it is shorter than the famous American aircraft carrier, the USS Ford, by only 13 meters.

Its width is about 73 meters, which is almost equal to the width of "Shandong", which is 75 meters wide, although unlike its American counterpart, it does not run on nuclear power.

The aircraft carrier "Type 003" relies on electromagnetic take-off, across 3 platforms, following the footsteps of the American aircraft carrier Ford, instead of a steam catapult, which leads to a faster rate of launch, amid expectations that Beijing will face problems related to that pattern, previously faced by the United States. United.

This allows it to launch the new generation of FC-31 stealth fighters with heavier bomb loads and more fuel, which means that the Chinese Navy is able to engage in long-range operations using the Type 003, which is also much faster and has an arsenal of weapons The ship's deck is larger than its current carriers.

2018: Work began on the newest warship, "Xi Jinping Fei," which military analyst Robert Farley said would be "the largest and most advanced aircraft carrier outside the United States."

According to the Pentagon, the new Type 003 carrier will not enter service until 2024.

The US Department of Defense said that work on a fourth carrier is expected to be nuclear-powered and similar to the new generation of Gerald R. Ford's ships.

The Chinese army ranks third in Global Fire Power's list in military affairs, after the United States and Russia, with a strength of more than 2.6 million soldiers (2.1 million in service and 510,000 in reserves).

Its budget is estimated at more than $178 billion.

The Chinese army owns 3260 aircraft (1,200 warplanes, 371 attack aircraft, 264 military cargo aircraft, 405 training aircraft, 115 special mission aircraft, and 902 military helicopters, including 327 attackers, in addition to 3 tankers).

While in the field of tanks, the Chinese army owns 3,205 tanks, 35,000 armored vehicles, 1,970 self-propelled guns, 1,234 field guns, 2,250 rocket launchers, and 777 naval units, including two aircraft carriers in service.

traditional mindset

In an interview with the state-run People's Daily in January 2017, Li Jie, a researcher with the China Naval Research Institute, stressed that the aircraft carrier is changing the traditional mentality of the Chinese Navy and will bring qualitative changes to its operating style and structure.

As for Fang Ping, a professor at the National Defense University of the Chinese Army, he saw that the carrier contains an engineering system, and he expected that its operation would lead to major changes in the Chinese Navy in terms of troop structure, fighting style, equipment system, training and organization of soldiers, etc., as it would enhance the capabilities of the Chinese Navy. China to fight in the far sea areas.

Other experts believe that the Chinese aircraft carrier will only be used for training and testing for the foreseeable future, and that it is still years away from perfecting carrier operations to the degree that the United States has reached in practice for decades.

According to experts, it is not possible to compare the Chinese aircraft carrier with its American counterpart, which is considered the most powerful in the world, due to a number of factors, including that the main facilities in the Chinese carrier adopted Russian technology, and it contains shortcomings at the level of uninterrupted navigation capabilities, and the limited combat capabilities in deep seas.

American aircraft carriers are also equipped with unmanned aircraft capable of flying for a distance of 200 to 300 miles, which is missing from their Chinese counterparts, at least in the current period, in addition to other weaknesses related to electronic systems, warning and espionage capabilities, and others.

In addition, aircraft carriers always need to form a large-sized fighter fleet to possess high combat capabilities, and the carrier fleet must be supported by various warships.

Which the Chinese carriers are not up to at the moment.

Experts believe that China needs 10 to 15 years to own a fleet of aircraft carriers, as the new ships will be built based on the experience of the United States, Brazil and other countries in this field.

The senior visiting researcher at the National University of Singapore, Yu Ji, goes on to say that the aircraft carrier is useless for the Chinese fleet, and if it is used against America, it will not be viable.

If it is used against China's neighbors, it will be a sign of China's bullying of its neighbors.