PLAN CV. A Chinese military official (there's some dispute as to who, exactly) has, according to Reuters, said that Peoples Liberation Army Navy could build its first aircraft carrier by 2010. I'd say that's staggeringly optimistic. Unless I'm terribly wrong, China has yet to lay the keel for a purpose-built domestically produced aircraft carrier. To finish design and construction, especially for a country that has never built a carrier before, would be an astounding achievement. It's perhaps a tiny bit more plausible that the PLAN might sufficiently refurbish the Varyag (a carrier purchased from Ukraine) by 2010, but the hulk is said to be in such poor condition that even that would be an achievement. Moreover, simply having a single carrier won't give the PLAN the ability to conduct serious carrier operations for quite a while; it took years for the Americans to figure out the basics of modern naval aviation, and the Russians still haven't quite got it. Undoubtedly, however, this report will feed some alarmist anti-China wingnuttery. Anyone particularly interested in the subject should check out Andrew Erickson and Andrew Wilson's "China's Aircraft Carrier Dilemma" in the Autumn 2006 Naval War College Review.
--Robert Farley
