Opinion India and China’s First Aircraft Carrier

It also underlines Beijing’s determination to irrevocably alter the strategic seascape of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

China’s carrier has come into service at a moment when Beijing’s maritime territorial disputes with its neighbours in the

Pacific—including Japan,Vietnam and the Philippines—have acquired a sharp edge and its economic interests in the Indian Ocean are growing.

The ‘Liaoning’ is a reflection of the massive investment Beijing has made in the rapid modernization of its naval forces and the

unwillingness of its leaders to play second fiddle to the United

States,which has dominated the Pacific and Indian Oceans for decades.

The significance of the occasion was underscored by the presence of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao at the ceremony in Dallian port where the Chinese Navy formally received the carrier.

Sceptics in the West point to the fact that it will be a while before ‘Liaoning’ will be an effective military platform. The pilots of the PLA Navy are still learning the tricks of landing and taking off from the carrier. It will be years before the PLAN builds an operational carrier battle group around the ‘Liaoning’.

Unsurprisingly some experts in the United States have called it a ‘stepping stone’ rather than a ‘milestone’ in the rise of China as a naval power. Many in the Indian defence establishment,which has operated aircraft carriers for decades,insist that it is one thing to acquire the carrier and entirely another to master the operational arts associated with it.

The fact,however,is that military analysts in the United States and India have long underestimated the pace of China’s military modernization and the political logic underlying it.

As in so many other military sectors,China might surprise its Asian neighbours and the United States by the speed with which it will turn the carrier into an effective strategic platform.

In the initial phase,the ‘Liaoning’ is likely to be used for training missions and scientific research. Having taken long to commission the Liaoning,which it bought as scrap from Ukraine in 1998,China has plans to build many more of them in the coming years.

Once it builds three or four carriers in the next two decades, China’s naval power and maritime reach will have a decisive impact on the balance of power in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

It will be a matter of time before ‘Liaoning’ sails into the Indian Ocean. Well before it becomes an awesome instrument of war,the ‘Liaoning’,as a symbol of China’s new political will,will have considerable diplomatic impact on the littoral of the Indian Ocean.

If coping with China’s inevitable rise as a naval power is a long-term strategic challenge for India,dealing with Beijing’s new naval diplomacy in the Indian Ocean backed by the ‘Liaoning’ will test India’s statecraft in the near term.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and a Contributing Editor for ‘The Indian Express’)