improvements in ASW, for instance, any PLAN carrier would be an easy target for
competently manned diesel-electric or nuclear-powered attack submarines. China
appears to have made no significant progress toward correcting its weakness in
ASW. Although its newer, large surface combatants can certainly carry helicopters
and might carry ASW helicopters, none appear to have modern hull-mounted or
towed-array sonars. There is also little evidence that China is devoting much
effort to developing planes equivalent to the U.S. P-3 maritime patrol aircraft.
Thus the PLAN’s ASW capabilities, while perhaps slowly improving, cannot yet
be counted on to provide a reasonable degree of security in open waters.
A PLAN carrier would play little role in a near-term Taiwan scenario, as land-
based PLAAF and PLANAF aircraft could perform all required air operations
across the narrow Taiwan Strait from airfields on the mainland. Unless China
were able to produce a range of carriersandincorporatethemintoacohesive
and effective concept of operations, it is difficult to envision them as the center-
piece of PLAN doctrine in future decades. A senior Chinese official has further
emphasized to the author that ‘‘China will not try to compete with the U.S.
intheopensea.EventwentyPRCcarriers cannot compete with U.S. nuclear
carriers.’’^123
For the foreseeable future, therefore, a Chinese carrier would most likely serve
at least one of two major roles. The first would be to support secondary missions
in which the most basic motivation is prestige. That aircraft carriers can play a
unique role was demonstrated by the 2004 tsunami, after which the PLAN
found itself completely upstaged by the U.S. Navy, the Indian Navy, and, most
painfully, the JMSDF (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force).^124 The second role
for carriers would be to complement the PLAN’s submarine-centered fleet.
Missions allocated to carriers might include collective maritime security
(e.g., SLOC protection and counter-piracy operations). This would obviously
be a secondary PLAN mission, oriented toward friends and rivals in the SCS
(South China Sea) and the Indian Ocean. Deployment of an aircraft carrier
would also enable the PLAN to project force into the SCS on a modest scale,
defending Chinese territorial claims there.
It remains to be seen, however, exactly what place aircraft-carrier development
will have in what has been a prolonged, well-publicized, and increasingly success-
ful attempt by China to become a maritime power.Base Infrastructure
Adm. Wu Shengli, commander of the PLA, together with his coequal, Political
Commissar Hu Yanlin, leads the 290,000 personnel (12.6 percent of the PLA’s
2.3 million) serving in operational submarine, surface, naval-aviation, coastal-
defense, and marine-corps units, as well as ten institutions imparting professional
military education.^125 Personnel include 25,000 PLANAF members in seven92 Asia Looks Seaward