China must build aircraft carrier 'soon' military says

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China must build aircraft carrier 'soon' military says
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4946624/China-must-build-aircraft-carrier-soon-military-says.html

By Peter Foster in Beijing Last Updated: 7:21AM GMT 06 Mar 2009


The Chinese navy has been lobbying for permission to build an aircraft carrier since the 1980 Photo: AFP

China must build an aircraft carrier "soon" if it wants to be taken seriously as a global superpower, a Chinese military official has said.

Speaking on the fringes of the National People's Congress, China's rubber stamp parliament, the official added that China now had the technology to build an indigenous carrier and should use it.

"Building aircraft carriers is a symbol of an important nation. It is very necessary," said Admiral Hu Yanlin in an article published in the government-sanctioned China Daily newspaper bearing the headline "Build aircraft carriers soon".

"China has the capability to build aircraft carriers and should do so," he added in remarks that will fuel speculation that, after two decades of research, China is ready commission its first carrier.

The comments come two days after China announced a 14.9 per cent increase in defence spending for 2009, a rise that will have seen total Chinese military spending increase by more than 50 per cent since 2006.

The Chinese navy has been lobbying for permission to build an aircraft carrier since the 1980s, but analysts say it has been over-ruled by the country's Central Military Commission anxious that China's rise should not appear to upset regional security balances.

However remarks last December by a spokesman for China's National Defence Ministry that aircraft carriers were "a reflection of a nation's comprehensive power" and were needed to meet the demands of a modern navy were seen as an indication that China would build a carrier soon.

The Chinese government is highly sensitive to claims that its increased military spending will have a potentially destabilizing effect in the Asia-Pacific region.

Earlier this week Li Zhaoxing, the official spokesman at the National People's Congress, bristled at suggestions that China's increased military spending was grounds for concern.

"China's limited military force is mainly for safeguarding our sovereignty and territory and forms no threat to any other country," he said.

Defence analysts say that acquisition of aircraft carrier, which would allow China to project power into the South China Sea, could be seen as a first step towards a long-term goal of challenging US pre-eminence on the high seas.

More immediately, however, the decision to build a carrier could threaten to expose a renewed rift with neighbouring Japan, whose long-strained relations with China have eased in recent years to enable top-level visits.

Under Japan's "peace" constitution, aircraft carriers are considered an "offensive weapon" and a decision by China to build a carrier would, some analysts believe, increase pressure within Japan to reconsider its non-offensive military posture.

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