China’s domain is spreading far beyond rare earths. Even where the US had no rival: the sea

While the United States is has launched yet to the search of those minerals and rare earths that China governs well above the rest of the planet, even with the pentagon and the Apple very Inverting a stratospheric sum, Beijing has been adding and building A small empire that begins to make many nations nervous. To Japan and Taiwan, who believed the seas as nobody: Washington.

Maritime ambition. In a context of growing strategic rivalry with the United States, China has intensified their Naval operations long range as part of an explicit demonstration of its global ambition.

Already We tell it: Between May and June, the aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong They carried out combined exercises in waters near Japan, operating beyond the so -called “First Islands Chain” and entering the “Second Chain”, including Guam in Equation, an important military enclave United States.

Nerves The presence of these two aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific not only caused Concern in Japanbut also revealed the New scope of the Chinese Navy, which seeks train their units To operate independently, far from the continental coasts, both in peace and war times.

The ability to perform air operations from ships in open sea (including Removal and landings of fighters and helicopters up to 90 times a day) provides China an operational experience that, although still incipient, anticipates a future use of these assets as force projection instruments beyond their immediate influence areas.

Aircraft carrier as a message. Beyond its military utility, Chinese aircraft carriers represent a powerful status symbol international. For the Government of Xi Jinping, the possession and deployment of these ships constitutes an affirmation that China has left behind the limitations of a regional power and progressly advanced towards the image of global power.

Even though Three Chinese aircraft carriers current (the liaoning, the Shandong and the still inactive Fujian) operate with conventional propulsion and are below technologically of the Eleven nuclear aircraft carriers From Washington, his exercises are promoted in official media as an unequivocal signal of the country’s maritime rebirth.

And one more when falling. In addition, the possibility that The fourth carriercurrently under construction, use nuclear propulsion and electromagnetic catapults indicates a gradual but ambitious evolution. Plus: The recent opening to the public Shandong in Hong Kongafter completing their maneuvers, reinforces that nationalist propaganda approach aimed at strengthening the legitimacy of Chinese leadership through military power.

Dispute for the Pacific. China’s aircrafts not only serve for training or to project distant influence, they also constitute a Operational tool Within the framework of Territorial disputes Activated in the Sea of South and Eastern China. Analysts agree that Beijing could use them to reinforce your claims in front of Japan, South Korea or Southeast Asian countries, or even to exert coercive pressure on Taiwan through A maritime block that prevents the flow of goods and communications.

Although in a direct conflict with the United States the aircraft carriers would be vulnerable to missiles and torpedoes (and would probably have a limited role in a immediate confrontation by Taiwan), its value lies in the control of broad areas, surveillance, political intimidation and support for combined naval operations. As He pointed out A Japanese academic to NYT, these platforms allow pressure on both military and civil vessels, becoming a hybrid instrument of economic and military coercion.

Evolutionary logic. From the Strait crisis from Taiwan in 1996, when the United States deployed two combat groups Of aircraft carriers to deter Beijing, China understood the need to develop its own naval response capacity. The starting point was the acquisition of the helmet of An old Soviet aircraft carrier In Ukraine, converted into the Liaoning and incorporated in 2012.

Since then, the advance has been progressive but constant. The Shandong, released in 2017was the first built entirely in Chinese shipyards, while The Fujianeven in the test phase, it incorporates for the first time a system of Electromagnetic catapultkey technology to operate heavier and better armed aircraft.

A long way. Despite these advances, experts like Narushige Michishita They warn in the New York Times That Chinese naval operations are still in a rudimentary phase, marked by a slow but disciplined learning curve. China prefers to avoid expensive errors and seeks, however, consolidate a coherent maritime doctrine and functional that allows, in a few decades, to compete from you to you with the great naval powers of the world.

The Indo-Pacific Theater. Plus: the simultaneous display Of the Liaoning and Shandong in deep waters, it has a double value: it allows the Chinese fleet to operate in unknown environments and reinforces its capacities for future intervention scenarios in critical areas, such as the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf or even the Mediterranean.

According to him Timothy Heath researcher of the Rand Corporation, the aircraft carriers will offer China the ability to project aerial missions in any balloon area Where your Navy sails, beyond the only foreign base that currently maintains in Yibuti. In that sense, the control of routes to the Middle East or the Strait of Malaca, vital for Chinese economic and energy interests, will probably be one of the Strategic objectives in the medium term.

A symbols war. I remembered the Times that, as Beijing builds More warshipsconsolidated alliances with African countries and reinforces its port diplomacy in Asia and Africa, the Indo-Pacific converts On the board where a new naval power competition is outlined, with the aircraft carriers as a tool of that Geostrategic ambition.

While the aircraft carriers do not guarantee maritime domain (especially in front of a power with Interdiction capabilities as the United States), its value lies both in its operational function and its symbolic weight. In other words, Beijing is no longer satisfied with defending their coasts, but with drawing routes on waters that, until recently, only dominated Your main rival.

Image | RHK111, Tyg728, Ministry of National Defense The People’s Republic of China/ Li Gang/ Xinhua

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