Big Brush, please give me a break.

When and where did Yang Wei said this? Looks like you don’t know this is an internet hoax.

Be carefuly about those “insiders”, if all of their words were true, china’s national security department may have used up their bullets long time ago.

SAC’s light fighter many years ago?

Well, his ID is “cute”, but doesn’t matter to me. It just represents one virtual guy’s own chosen personality, like xxxxPanda. He may think he’s really gaining something although he’s only painting an image of himself.

But his extreme confidence towards china is, suspicious to me. I’ve seen similar guys in other forums, especially in chinese forums. Usually they make extrem claims, then you start to see some unknown IDs coming and critising chinese being shamelessly bragging bla bla. Most of them, (sorry to say this though), come from Taiwan.

But, at the end of the day, I really don’t mind. An internet forum is like a pub, you can say whatever you want, and you are only presenting yourself, including childishness, to others.

Aircraft Carrier project is a huge project. By the time we see something in pictures, it’s definitely started several years ago:
1. Design stage can be completely hidden from outside world.
2. Sub modules,materials and keel preparation can be partially hidden.
3. Now at this stage you will see something in a big dry dock, although it’s still years away from completing the ship.

China has been doing aircraft carrier R&D for more than 2 decades. To me, they may start it any time. Given their action on Su33, I bet the construction will start pretty soon. If they wait another 20 years, they will loose a lot of things they learned and trained on Varyag. Old rumors said it would be started 2 years after starting Varyag’s refit.

As of the reason why China chose to to go for a medium to large full function carrier, actually we can write a whole book about it. There are many reasons. If China started the construction 10 years ago, I am pretty sure she would follow India’s current plan. China indeed planned to start from 20-40KT heli carrier or LHD. But given the fact that no matter what China can produce now still can’t match any current USN CG anyway, starting from a fully functional carrier then take the time to iron out problems and go from there is acceptable. At least that seems to be the thinking I understand.

In one word, this is only their first step: main focus is still about learning and proving what they have learned for all these years, not about go out and controling islands or sea lanes. That’s why CATs, fixed wing AEW etc… are a must to have to verify technologies. And a larger hull is easier (which allows more room for rectifying problems) technology wise. Also just building a larger empty hull is not a problem to China’s current ship building industry.

The PLA isn’t that dumb. This isn’t going to happen. Even then, it isn’t a force on force issue. Too many politicos like the system the way it is ( $$$ ) No one is going to be dumb enough to get in the way of the economy going the way it is now.

It’s a common opinion among china defence industry that Taiwan (mainly the former president Li DengHui and the current ruling part DPP) is their best friend, it’s mainly because of Taiwan that they were saved. Up until mid 90s, china’s defence industry had been in shambles, (senior engineers earned 30-60 USD per month).

Frankly speaking, at least some Chinese, especially related to military sectors, would love to see a lasting Taiwan problem. As long as it does not explode, a controlled chaos is good.

There were couple of times that China deliberately tried to keep the issue hot; and in the last couple of years, Taiwan itself is chaotic enough hence China is becoming low key now.

My view is, the chance of a large scale war over Taiwan is slowly decreasing. Many people may not agree, but I think a stronger China is more confident and comfortable to solve the issue peacefully. The most dangorous time was 5 years+ ago when China really felt she was cornered and not much non-military room left.

Golly, you’ve done it again: even quicker than the chinese to turn this thread into flames

Forget the idea of Chinese carriers in any specific isolated military objective. Instead think of them as part of Chinese grand strategy. China is becoming a great power and will within the next 100 years (assuming things go as predicted in terms of economic growth) have similar power status as the US, it is for this which chinese carriers are important.

As to what they will look like, the first may well be Varyag, but the first indiginous carriers will probably have that distinctive Chinese look like the 052 ddgs and the 054 frigates.

You are absolutely correct. Quite a lot people focused too much on very short term objectives. And your prediction on the future chinese carrier may be true as well.

This one