Last week, China’s first indigenously produced aircraft carrier, Shandong (CNS-17), concluded a much-publicized five-day port call in Hong Kong. China’s propaganda organs reported that more than 10,000 Chinese citizens visited the aircraft carrier and accompanying ships of this People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) carrier strike group (CSG). While not the first Hong Kong port call by a Chinese aircraft carrier, as the first occurred in 2017, what marks the Shandong’s port call as a memorable event is that it punctuates the conclusion of the PLA Navy’s historic dual-carrier operations beyond the First and Second Island Chains in June of this year.
The PLA Navy’s dual-carrier operations come amidst two U.S. Pacific Fleet CSGs, the Nimitz and Carl Vinson, being sent to the Middle East to support combat operations against Iran. During this PLA Navy dual CSG deployment, on July 7, the U.S. Navy announced the next U.S. Navy Ford-class nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), will be delayed by two years, with a resultant drop in America’s operational carrier fleet from 11 to 10 for at least one year. This is a degradation that puts further strain on the U.S. Navy’s ability to effectively deter or defeat a PLA invasion of Taiwan—an invasion that would inevitably include attacks on U.S. military forces and facilities in the Western Pacific.
The delay of the next U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is emblematic of a much larger fight that is ongoing within the Pentagon and national security circles—about the future efficacy and utility of the aircraft carrier. There is a growing circle of “anti-carrier” advocates who assert the aircraft carrier is somehow more vulnerable to attacks from Chinese anti-ship cruise, ballistic, or hypersonic missiles than are shore-based fixed installations arrayed across the Pacific. As has been pointed out before on these pages, such assertions are based more on inter-service competition for resources than they are on objective truth.
The fact is U.S. Navy aircraft carriers remain one of the most important platforms of assured power projection, especially when it comes to the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, which is 20 times the size of the continental United States.
What the PLAN’s dual-carrier deployment demonstrates is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) understands the value of aircraft carriers and has invested a great deal of money, time, and effort into building its carrier force. From not having an operational carrier just 13 years ago, the PLA Navy now has two operational aircraft carriers and a third, the Fujian (CNS-18), in the late stages of sea trials with an expected initial operational capability before the end of this calendar year and a keel for a fourth carrier most likely to be laid down during 2025.
The deployment of the PLA Navy’s two operational aircraft carriers, the Shandong (CV-17) and the Liaoning (CV-16), into the deep blue ocean area east of the First and Second Island Chains is important for five reasons that demonstrate the CCP’s commitment to building an aircraft carrier program that is able to project power globally, just as the U.S. Navy has done for the past 80 years.
The first, and arguably the most important, takeaway from this dual-carrier deployment regards sustainment. The PLA Navy has now demonstrated its ability to stay at sea for weeks at a time and conduct flight operations, as demonstrated by the Liaoning’s (CNS-16) operations east of the Second Island Chain for the first time in the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). What this means is that the PLA Navy is proving (to themselves) that they can sustain operations far from any shore support and in the absence of available divert airfields.
This is quite an achievement, especially given that the PLA Navy does not have a Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) aircraft or equivalent like the U.S. Navy has with the C-2/Greyhound. U.S. Navy carrier air wings depend upon COD deliveries for material and maintainers on a routine basis in order to keep aircraft sorties at high levels. This dual-carrier deployment demonstrates that the PLA Navy can keep high-tech/maintenance-intensive aircraft flying, indicating that they have sufficient onboard parts (not a simple achievement) and qualified maintainers with the right equipment.
Second, this dual aircraft carrier deployment demonstrates the PLA Navy’s ability to “break out” through the First Island Chain, this time through both the Miyako Strait and Bashi Channel. For the PLA Navy, being able to “break out” through the First Island Chain is a combat training evolution, the equivalent of the past 35 years of U.S. Navy carrier strike groups transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. It is a psychological barrier where the PLA Navy crews are on high alert and at “general quarters,” given the aircraft, ships, and missiles that are arrayed on the islands of the First Island Chain and northern Philippines and southern Taiwan.
Third in importance is the Liaoning’s (CV-16) operations east of Mindanao, Republic of the Philippines. This is the second year in a row that the PLA Navy has dispatched the Liaoning to operate east of Mindanao and a message to the Philippines that the PLA Navy has this island nation surrounded as the CCP continues its unilateral expansionism in the South China Sea. And most importantly, the Liaoning’s carrier flight operations east of Mindanao are a signal to U.S. military planners that PLA Navy carriers are just like our carriers—mobile and threatening not just to the Philippines, but to Taiwan’s east coast and our own bases in Guam.
The fourth reason this dual-carrier deployment is important is Japan. Notice how far north the Liaoning went after it crossed the 2nd Island Chain. That is the approach corridor to Tokyo Bay and is the avenue that our forward-deployed naval force (FDNF) aircraft carrier takes to do carrier qualifications on Iwo Jima, 600 miles south of the Second Island Chain. This is a clear demonstration that the PLAN is training to take out our FDNF carrier before their air wing becomes operational and certified for carrier operations.
This point was made when the USS George Washington CSG (our FDNF carrier) departed Tokyo Bay at the end of May and headed down to Iwo Jima to conduct carrier qualifications; the PLA Navy’s two carriers were in the waters of the First and Second Island Chains. Before a carrier can be restored to full operational status, the air wing has to get the air wing’s aviators “current” with day and night arrested landings on Iwo Jima before authorizing them to operate from the carrier. While this is a peacetime requirement and could be abbreviated in a conflict, even so, before such hostilities, it is a vulnerability—one that the PLA Navy is clearly training to exploit.
The fifth key takeaway from this dual-carrier operation is the threat to Guam. Sending carriers on either side of Guam is an unmistakable demonstration of the PLA’s plans to attack Guam. First, the PLA Strategic Rocket Force would rain down DF-26 ASBMs on Anderson Air Base, which would then be followed up with PLA Navy carrier aviation strikes that would come in and finish off the remaining USAF bombers and any naval ships or submarines left on the island.
This kind of sustained, blue-water operations by two PLA Navy aircraft carriers is a reflection of the personnel and material readiness of the PLAN. They are now operating just like the U.S. Seventh Fleet, demonstrating they are a peer in that regard. And while their carrier air wings are smaller and have shorter legs, they are operating inside the Second Island Chain under the umbrella of the PLA Strategic Rocket Force, and they cannot be dismissed.
Yet oddly enough, the most important debate in Washington’s most consequential debate may be over the future of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers. Given the fearmongering about vulnerabilities from the PLA missile and space-based Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems over the past 20 years, America has witnessed a gradual erosion in carrier operations in the Western Pacific. For example, the last time a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier transited the Taiwan Strait was in 2007—18 years ago—an entire generation of U.S. Navy officers and sailors ago! Likewise, the U.S. has ceded the Yellow Sea to the PRC when it comes to aircraft carrier operations. If this erosion in the trust and confidence of American naval power continues, there will be no need for American aircraft carriers.
The reality is that U.S. Navy aircraft carrier power is still a vitally important tool for America’s national security interests, especially given the Trump administration’s focus on “Hemispheric Defense.” Carriers provided F-35 escort services to U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers striking Iran and will be critically important participants—along with the U.S. nuclear submarine forces—in any war at sea in the Pacific as the PRC continues its relentless expansionism.
There is an old saying amongst carpenters, “Measure twice, cut once.” Before the anti-carrier “experts” in Washington make any more changes, they would do well to adhere to this adage. Measure again! The fact that the PRC is doubling down on its aircraft carrier program should be a clear mark against making such precipitous cuts to a proven U.S. Navy power projection capability.
James E. Fanell served as a career naval intelligence officer whose positions included senior intelligence officer for China at the Office of Naval Intelligence and chief of intelligence for CTF-70, Seventh Fleet, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He is the co-author of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure.