Sailing to a PLAN
2005 was the year of growth and modernisation for the Chinese Navy
By Prasun K. Sengupta
http://www.forceindia.net
March 06
According to a detailed roadmap prepared by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council in 1999, the People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN) will have gone through a complete force modernisation overhaul by the year 2050. The first phase of this roadmap was already achieved by 2000, during which period the PLAN gained control over the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The three seas are all located within the ‘first island chain’ of the Pacific Ocean, including The Philippines and Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. The second phase of the roadmap will be completed between 2020 and 2025, by which time the PLAN will have established control over waterways within the ‘second island chain’ including the Japan Sea, the Philippines Sea and Indonesia Sea, covering Japan’s Kurile and Hokkaido Islands, and Marianas and Palau Islands in the south Pacific. The third phase will be completed by 2050, during which time Mainland China will have established its ocean fleet operating in areas as far as Guam and The Maldives in the ‘third island chain’.
Naval Aviation
The PLAN’s Shanghai Research Institute has been spearheading its plans for acquiring a fleet of aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships (LPD)
LPDs. In 1999 the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council had earmarked Yuan250 million for the design and construction of two LPDs, to be completed by 2009.
The PLAN’s interest in aircraft carriers entered an active phase in 2005, and a PLAN delegation visited Russia ‘s MAKS 2005 aerospace exhibition in Zhukovsky to carefully study all the necessary technologies. A detailed technical presentation by the Sukhoi Aircraft Corp of the Su-33 and Su-33KUB shipborne combat aircraft was specially arranged for the visiting Chinese PLAN delegation, including a late-evening Su-33KUB demonstration flight during the exhibition. The Su27KUB was especially flown in to Zhukovsky for half-a-day from Saki , Ukraine, where it is currently being flight-tested. In early August, just prior to the MAKS exhibition, a PLAN delegation visited St Petersburg, where it listened to detailed technical presentations by representatives of the Nevskoye warship design bureau (PKB), the Russian designer of aircraft carriers, as well as to other companies cooperating with Nevskoye PKB. The visiting delegation also examined aircraft carrier-related equipment, including automatic landing systems and aircraft arresting devices. The delegation next visited the Ukrainian shipyard in Nikolayev, which has built all Soviet aircraft carriers to date. Sukhoi Aircraft Corp also submitted a three-stage proposal with various dates of delivery for the Su-33s and Su-33KUBs.
Going in parallel are efforts to make the 67,500-tonne Kuznetsov-class multi-role aircraft carrier Varyag, currently being refurbished in Dalian, seaworthy within a five-year period. By December, the PLAN had successfully installed an internal air conditioning system along with a reverse osmosis system for recycling sea water. These systems will later be integrated with a COGAG propulsion system that will be acquired from Ukraine ‘s Zorya Mashproekt Scientific and Production Enterprise.
By: vario - 13th April 2006 at 08:28
What are you guys ranting about? That is just a set of general aims that the PLAN is aiming to achieve in the three phases, what is wrong with that?
PS, Nimrod, whats 1910 + 40? Not 2060 I asure you.
Sorry, this article is from an Indian site.
Above posters are not questioning China, they are question this Indian article specifically.
By: danrh - 13th April 2006 at 06:58
PS, Nimrod, whats 1910 + 40? Not 2060 I asure you.
Nah you missed the point. The Austro-Hungarians had come up with a way to accelerate themselves through time so they could grow quicker than the other nations. Its another super weapon like Nikolai Telsa’s energy weapons that that we in the West were spared the wrath of but will be visited upon us on the day of reckoning 😀
Daniel
By: plawolf - 12th April 2006 at 17:50
What are you guys ranting about? That is just a set of general aims that the PLAN is aiming to achieve in the three phases, what is wrong with that?
PS, Nimrod, whats 1910 + 40? Not 2060 I asure you.
By: Super Nimrod - 12th April 2006 at 14:42
Exactly just before the First world war didn’t the Austro-Hungarian empire have plans to match the Royal Navy by about 2060 (which was only 40 odd years) and what happened to them ……………………. :rolleyes:
By: Sancho Pancho - 12th April 2006 at 04:55
Talking about 2050 is totally meaningless, it’s interesting to look back at predictions of the world in 50 years made in 1956, weekend trips to Jupiter, anti gravity flight, a end to disease and hunger, limitless free energy blah blah blah, and that’s before we get onto the politics of the cold war! 🙂 .
Dude, my parents had a 1962 World Book Encyclopedia that if you looked up “Vietnam” and read it you would’ve thought that it was a peaceful country; all the images of slavery showed smiling blacks; and stated that by 1980 we would have cars that hovered.
WHERE IS MY HOVER-CAR??????
By: Turbinia - 2nd April 2006 at 07:47
Talking about 2050 is totally meaningless, it’s interesting to look back at predictions of the world in 50 years made in 1956, weekend trips to Jupiter, anti gravity flight, a end to disease and hunger, limitless free energy blah blah blah, and that’s before we get onto the politics of the cold war! 🙂 Saying a Navy will be totally modernised and overhauled in 50 years is like saying you need oxygen to live, it’s stating the blatantly obvious as ships in general don’t tend to last 50 years in frontline service.
By: vikraal - 2nd April 2006 at 07:28
So By 2050 they plan to have what 2-3 CV’s against the 12-13 super CV’s of US? Heck India and russia will have 3 CV’s or more by then. The report doesn’t say anything concrete.
By: Unicorn - 2nd April 2006 at 06:59
“the People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN) will have gone through a complete force modernisation overhaul by the year 2050”
And in the year 2050 the United States will have orbital platforms commanding fields of low earth orbit to surface weapons (most likely the Thor “Rods of God” concept”), plus whatever surface and subsurface assets that another 44 years of unceasing technological development can offer.
The Japanese , Koreans (almost certainly unified by then) and whatever the Russian Federation has morphed into by then, will also field an array of technology we can scarcely comprehend, let alone predict.
I doubt that China will be in a position to claim sea dominance in the outer island chain in the teeth of everyone else, at best they are likely to be able to contest sea control with others.
Still, its nice to see they PLAN for the long term…
By: Arabella-Cox - 1st April 2006 at 00:12
Sounds interesting. Some known facts (Chinese Su-27KUB demo) are mentioned in the naval aviation part, so the article appears carefully researched and the part you posted in bold also seems too detailed to be a figment of the author’s imagination, IMHO.
I’d say the Russians would have some objections to Chinese control of the Sea of Japan and the waters around the Kurils though. One of the reasons they are refusing to give back Kunashir and Iturup to Japan appears to be that their SSBNs out of Vladivostok need to pass them to gain access to the open Pacific Ocean.
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March 31, 2006 at 5:34 pm