003 aircraft carrier, a question that the whole world is paying attention to is how many aircraft carriers will China eventually build? Foreign media have made extensive speculations on this, and the number of guesses is mainly 5 to 10 ships. There are different opinions from all parties. Faced with widespread suspicion from the outside world, China’s Ministry of National Defense responded positively to this issue. At the press conference of the Ministry of National Defense on June 30, when asked how many aircraft carriers China would build, Tan Kefei, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, said that China’s development and improvement of weapons and equipment are not aimed at any country or specific target. China’s aircraft carriers We will comprehensively consider the follow-up development plan based on national security needs and equipment and technology development. Spokesperson Tan Kefei emphasized that China's nature as a socialist country, its strategic decision to pursue the path of peaceful development, and its independent foreign policy of peace determine that China has always pursued a defensive national defense policy. History has and will continue to prove that China is a builder of world peace. Contributors to global development and defenders of international order.
It should be said that how many aircraft carriers China will eventually build is a very difficult question to answer, and the response of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense is a textbook example. aircraft carrier is a strategic asset of the country and is related to the country's military strategic plan and should not be disclosed easily. However, as the outside world is generally concerned about China's aircraft carrier construction plan, if no corresponding answer is given, it will leave room for speculation by foreign media hyping up the "China threat theory." The answer of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense actually conveyed a key message, that is, the number of Chinese aircraft carriers depends on China's ultimate security needs, and China has always pursued a defensive national defense policy and will never be like the United States. This actually implies the fact that China cannot build more than 10 aircraft carriers like the United States. Such a response is to fight back against those conspiracy theories that use the topic of Chinese aircraft carriers to hype up the "China threat theory."
However, as the spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense said, China also needs to maintain its own national security, so China needs to build a certain number of aircraft carriers. Considering China's specific national conditions, China has a coastline of more than 10,000 kilometers long and is under tremendous pressure on coastal defense. More importantly, as the second largest economy in the world today, China has a large number of overseas interests and needs military power to ensure the security of its national maritime lines of communication. This makes China's demand for ocean-going weapons such as aircraft carriers very strong. Only by having an aircraft carrier can we have the ability to consolidate maritime communication lines in ocean areas and maintain the safety of our country's overseas personnel and assets around the world. Therefore, it is imperative for China to build a certain number of aircraft carriers, and three aircraft carriers are obviously not enough. So, how many aircraft carriers is the choice that best serves China’s national interests?
Generally speaking, aircraft carrier assets need to be divided into three parts for use, one part is in an operational deployment state, one part is in a state of preparation for deployment, and the other part is in a maintenance state. This means that if China wants to keep two aircraft carriers available at any time, it must build at least six more aircraft carriers. For a country like China that focuses on defense policy, the scale of six aircraft carriers is not small. A dual aircraft carrier battle group is enough to exert an important influence in any region of the world. In today's world, except for the U.S. Navy, no country can dispatch a de facto dual aircraft carrier battle group for ocean operations. If nothing unexpected happens, China will become the first country after the United States to have dual aircraft carriers or even three aircraft carrier battle groups to attack at the same time. In this sense, it is a good choice for the People's Liberation Army to serve 6-7 aircraft carriers at the same time. Some people may say that the lineup of 6 to 7 aircraft carriers is not enough to compete with the US Navy, and the number of construction may be too small. But we still have to remember that China is not a country pursuing global hegemony. Double-digit aircraft carriers are to ensure the ability to intervene in various parts of the world at any time, and China has no such need.
For anti-access/area denial operations in offshore areas, land-based missile weapons and strategic bombers are more important equipment. Moreover, the cost of aircraft carriers is quite high, which refers not only to the construction cost, but also to the subsequent operating costs. According to the general rules of naval equipment, the annual operating and maintenance costs of a naval fleet are about 5% to 15% of the cost. This fluctuation depends on the frequency of dispatches. The huge aircraft carrier fleet of the U.S. Navy is a typical bottomless pit that empties money. Even in peacetime, the 11 aircraft carriers of the U.S. Navy consume the money of one aircraft carrier every year. In fact, the gap in operating fleet costs between China and the United States allows China to save a lot of money every year to build new warships. This is an important reason why we can quickly close the gap. In a word, China does not pursue militaristic development, nor does it pursue global hegemony, so building the same number of aircraft carriers as the US Navy will not be our choice.
