RIS OSBORN
The pace at which the People’s Republic of China is building and adding Navy ships and aircraft carriers is not likely to be overlooked at Pentagon and throughout the world. China is fast expanding its global power projection ability, and perhaps even more concerning to the Pentagon is the very visible extent to which China’s third “Fujian” aircraft carrier appears to “replicate” or simply copy elements of the US Navy’s Ford-class carriers.
The PLA-Navy’s “Fujian” third carrier is now on the ocean for sea trials, a development which introduces a number of critical threat variables , the most pertinent of which may be questions of presence, reach and construction speed. The PRC has added a second large shipyard, blended civil and military construction and is fast adding a new class of carriers. China has already deployed “dual carrier” war preparations similar to the US and had also sent its second carrier, the Shandong, on deployments near Taiwan and the South China Sea, With the Fujian, China has abandoned a ski-jump kind of formation and instead migrated toward a large, flat-deck design similar to the US Navy’s Ford class.
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