China’s new supercarrier and its Pacific Island push are a warning to America and Australia

This image of an aircraft carrier is an unmistakable projection of Chinese power. But it isn’t the only reason for Australia and the US to worry.

The launch ceremony of the Fujian, a People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft carrier. Picture: CCTV / AFP.

Aircraft carriers are about power projection. But they can’t go it alone. They need the support and protection of land facilities. And that’s the drive behind Beijing’s Pacific Islands push.

Once outside the South China Sea fortress chain, China’s new Fujian supercarrier will need lairs from where it can impose its gunboat diplomacy.

And suppose Beijing secures such a port in the Solomon Islands or Papua New Guinea. In that case, an air fleet half the size of Australia’s entire fighter force could sit off our coast.

It’s an intimidating thought.

And that’s the intention, argues Lowy Institute director Sam Roggeveen.

“For the United States, aircraft carriers have been useful in the post-Cold War era against countries that were largely defenceless when it comes to naval warfare — Iraq, Libya, and Yugoslavia, for instance,” he writes in Foreign Policy.

“China may be designing its carrier fleet for the same purpose. It wants a force that can help the Communist Party coerce or punish smaller powers, not fight a peer competitor.”

Aircraft carriers aren’t what they used to be.

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They dominated World War II because they could carry a powerful force of strike aircraft anywhere in the world unobserved. The warship would then sit safely hidden over the horizon as these surprised their targets.

But satellites have erased the element of surprise. And modern missiles far outrange the aircraft these ships carry.

“Submarines and anti-ship missiles are now so potent and omnipresent that aircraft carriers probably wouldn’t survive long in a major war,” says Mr Roggeveen.

This, he argues, shows Beijing is thinking ahead.

“So, the Type 003 (Fujian) may not be a direct challenge to American naval power. Rather, it is a sign that China is thinking about an era when the credibility of US power in Asia has further eroded and when China itself has a freer hand to deal with smaller countries. In other words, China is building a post-American fleet.”

Striving for dominance

“China’s launch of a new aircraft carrier, its third and the second built entirely at home, speaks to Beijing’s ambitions to become a military power of global standing and reach,” says Mr Roggeveen.

“And it suggests that China is prepared to compete with the United States on what has long been Washington’s strongest territory. US military dominance, particularly in Asia, is built on maritime power, which in turn is built around its carrier fleet.”

China’s Fujian supercarrier is not nuclear-powered. It needs regular refuelling and reprovisioning. And that makes it dependent on support ships and port-based logistics.

That’s why Beijing’s drive for foreign military bases is fundamentally linked to its desire to operate a carrier strike force.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) has assessed the need for China’s aircraft carriers to use island “stepping stones” to project their power.

“Combat aircraft can only effectively operate within the range of available radar and sensing platforms,” it argues. “Without external radar coverage, they have limited awareness of their surroundings.”

The Fujian supercarrier is the first Chinese carrier capable of carrying radar command and control aircraft. That enables its J-15 “Flying Shark” aircraft to hit targets up to 1000km from the carrier itself.

But there are limits. Aircraft – and their pilots – are immensely precious.

“To operate safely, combat aircraft need to have a divert airfield within range in case they are unable to return to the carrier for any reason,” AMTI notes. “The only runways in the region to which Chinese combat aircraft can reliably divert are those on the Chinese mainland and on China’s island outposts.”

That means Fujian is taking a real risk when operating more than 750km from the nearest friendly base.

“China cannot hope to dominate maritime Asia with aircraft carriers alone,” says Roggeveen. “The Pacific is vast, and even China’s resources will be thinly spread. Beijing will need foreign bases to improve surveillance of the region and reduce transit time for its aircraft and warships.”

‘Safeguarding interests’

“China follows a national defence strategy that is defensive in nature, so both the spears and the shields it develops are aimed at safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests, as well as contribute to regional stability and world peace”, states the Communist Party’s Global Times news agency.

The latest example of this policy arose in Pakistan last week. Beijing demanded that Islamabad allow the basing of Chinese military personnel to protect Chinese contractors building major “Belt and Road” infrastructure projects.

Similar pressure has been exerted upon Sri Lanka and Cambodia.

We’ve seen this before.

In World War I, Germany sought to challenge British interests in the region with a network of colonies including Bougainville, the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands of Micronesia, Nauru, the western part of Samoa and part of the Solomon Islands.

And the presence of an island-hopping German battlecruiser fleet in the war’s opening months was of immense concern to Australia and New Zealand.

“Right now, of course, China would find it hard to deploy this kind of power without stumbling into America’s security network in Asia,” Roggeveen says. “But already that network is fraying at the edges, as China has demonstrated by effectively taking control of the South China Sea.”

The US wasn’t willing to intervene and prevent China’s illegal construction of artificial island fortresses.

Will it be willing to do so anywhere else?

“That same nagging question — is America’s military leadership and alliance network in Asia really important enough to risk a confrontation with the biggest rival the United States has ever faced? — is slowly eroding the credibility of the US-centred security architecture of the region,” Roggeveen warns.

‘Defensive measures’

Beijing argues its military expansion into the Indo-Pacific is a response to a US desire to base strike missiles in Japan, South Korea, Guam – and Australia.

“As the Western missile network is pressing in on the Asia-Pacific region, China needs to develop antiballistic missile systems as well as far-reaching weapons like aircraft carriers and hypersonic missiles to defend itself,” argues the state-controlled Global Times.

“When needed, China should be able to use its long-range strike capabilities and destroy those missile positions,” says Wang Ya’nan, editor of the Communist Party controlled Aerospace Knowledge magazine.

That means Beijing needs Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean island outposts.

“China’s basing ambitions in the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia won’t be countered with weapons,” says Roggeveen. “It must be done with statecraft, a diplomatic and economic effort to ensure that any Chinese ambitions to develop client-state relationships in Asia will be permanently frustrated.”

Deterrence is a cornerstone of statecraft.

China's third aircraft carrier, launched last week, is part of a post-American naval fleet, say I in @ForeignPolicy: https://t.co/oPaUghgsjp May interest @mcgregorrichard@goldkorn@niubi@KaiserKuo@RickJoe_PLA@Scholars_Stage@globalsarang@gideonrachman@JohnCulver689

— Sam Roggeveen (@SamRoggeveen) June 22, 2022

And China has already taught the world how to undermine a great military power.

“China focused not on how it could dominate the oceans but on how it could stop the United States from dominating,” Roggeveen explains.

It built a force of attack submarines and small, fast attack boats. It gave its long-range bombers sea-skimming missiles. It developed new long-range ballistic missiles that could drop hypervelocity gliders on ships.

“Just as the Chinese military made it too dangerous for the United States to operate its carriers close to China, so too can smaller powers in Asia build a maritime strategy focused on negation,” Roggeveen adds.

That could involve new autonomous submarines and smart mines in conjunction with “area denial” weapons such as anti-ship missiles.

“With smart investment, smaller countries can certainly erode the coercive potential of the Chinese fleet and stop Beijing from becoming the dominant power,” Roggeveen concludes. “Carriers are a sign of Chinese power — but that doesn’t mean Beijing has to rule the waves.”