In the Shadow of Giants: Assessing the Strategic Ambitions and Political Implications of the Chinese Aircraft Carrier

Having lived through an era of carrier-enabled US naval domination of the high seas for decades, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been relentlessly bolstering its naval capability in defense of its most critical national interests. In the maritime realm, the push towards aircraft carriers is one of the most intriguing developments. For over a decade, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has been intently committed to developing its naval aviation ecosystem. From the acquisition of an unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier in 2012 to the recent launching of their first truly indigenous carrier, the Type 003 Fujian, Xi Jinping has indicated that carrier airpower is both a strategic and political priority. This trend warrants an assessment of the capabilities and possible employment doctrine of naval aviation within the context of the PRC’s strategic interests and an exploration of its value in various operational scenarios.

While it can be argued that the PRC’s naval aviation will likely have a negligible impact on the outcome of a direct conflict with US forces, the investment is not totally misplaced. There are many factors driving PRC investment in naval aviation, and not all of them are focused on directly countering the US Navy in a near-term slugging match. Aircraft carriers reflect the essence of Xi Jinping’s ambitions of “national rejuvenation” and a “world-class” military by mid-century, defined both qualitatively and geographically. Reviewing Chinese sources and technological developments offers greater insight into the long-term intentions of Chinese strategic planners, as well as where, when, and how the PRC might employ its carrier airpower to achieve its national objectives.

The Appeal

Since the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996–97, the PLAN been posturing itself for the most likely regional conflict scenarios, almost all of which involve near-shore “active defense.” As such, the utility of a traditionally offensive force-projection platform such as an aircraft carrier and its accompanying air wing is not immediately apparent. The same strategic advantages that aircraft carriers grant the US Navy, for example, do not appear to be commensurately relevant to the PRC at first glance. Indeed, even initial plannings within the PLAN about the role of their future carrier force were fragmented and frequently shifted. Prior to the current period of heavy naval modernization, cruise and ballistic missiles functioned as a placeholder for underdeveloped offensive naval capabilities that are typically possessed by a large fleet. For a significant period, the PRC forwent procurement of this expansive naval fleet in favor of relatively cost-effective Anti-Access/Aerial Denial (A2/AD) capabilities, such as conventional ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. Within a geostrategic environment favoring force projection and long-range striking capability, shore- and air-launched missiles have enabled the PRC to hold a wide array of US assets at risk across the Indo-Pacific region without possessing a commensurately powerful surface fleet. However, the pursuit of aircraft carriers is attractive to the PRC for both strategic and political reasons.

 At least in part, investment in aircraft carriers is undoubtedly a matter of national prestige. From observing the value that aircraft carriers have demonstrated in their service to the US, especially when directing opposing Chinese interests, the PRC likely views aircraft carriers as symbols of national might and globe-spanning influence, all in accordance with Xi Jinping’s ambitions of national rejuvenation. In some cases, the PLAN naval aviation department has constructed their officer-selection processes and training programs as perfect models of their US Navy counterparts. However, territorial interests are arguably the primary driver of aircraft carrier development. The prospect of conflict in the South China Sea has prodded the PRC towards developing means of enforcing their maritime interests, which center around regional intimidation. These types of operations may have initially spurred carrier development, and many references exist within PLA literature to South China Sea operations, the general pursuit of territorial interests beyond the Taiwan issue, and the protection of claims on maritime natural resources.

 As such, naval analyst Daniel Kostecka suggests that carriers are unlikely to be used to directly oppose Taiwanese or US forces, and were likely never intended to do so as a primary mission set. Rather, carriers will be used to conduct asymmetric warfare against regional rivals who lack effective defenses against concentrated air assaults and anti-surface warfare. In particular, Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson observe that the possession of aircraft carriers allows the PRC to exert pressure on its regional neighbors to settle maritime disputes in the PRC’s favor. As one Chinese expert writes, “Our carrier will definitely not engage with powerful US aircraft carrier fighting groups. But it is enough to be a symbolic threat among neighboring countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines who have territorial disputes with China.”

In this way, the development of naval aviation carries significant advantages for the PRC, many of which are endemic with the concept of carrier airpower. In the absence of serious air and naval threats, aircraft carriers allow the PRC to project power throughout the South China Sea with unparalleled precision and persistence. In southern and eastern regions of the South China Sea that are much farther from the Chinese mainland, mobile floating airstrips are valuable assets. After all, PLA writings have alluded to the use of naval aviation to protect maritime interests and cover amphibious assaults beyond the range of land-based aircraft—this is almost certainly a reference to the South China Sea. Very few nations possess the means to repel concentrated assaults by regenerative naval aviation, and even fewer can directly threaten any element of a carrier strike group to deter these attacks.

Limitations

While aircraft carriers carry substantial utility for the PLA as flexible and intimidating maritime weapons employed against weaker rivals, their potential role in a conflict against the US is much more ambiguous and limited—Chinese experts have admitted that their carrier forces are not well-optimized for direct confrontations with the US Navy. The most significant factor hamstringing the utility of PLAN aviation is the anti-surface capability of the US Navy, which will undoubtedly seek to make PLAN forces a non-factor as quickly as possible. PLAN forces will likely be subject to concentrated submarine and air attacks that will place considerable strain on operationally unproven systems and doctrine within the PLAN—integrated air defense and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW). Given the immense amount of time and resources devoted thus far to developing the US’s national missile defense architecture, analysts are still skeptical that the PLA possesses a mature Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) that is capable of repelling complex saturation attacks, despite heavy investment. These concerns are most relevant with regard to ship-based anti-air capabilities, which have been a focus of PLA development for a comparatively small amount of time but will be critical in repelling a concentrated air assault. Decades-long US investment in naval air defense technologies such as the Aegis Combat System and family of air defense “Standard Missiles” have no counterpart within the PLAN.

Even against relatively small numbers of ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) tactical ballistic missiles and Storm Shadow cruise missiles, the vaunted Russian S-300/400 air defense systems—of which the Chinese ship-borne HHQ-9 is a direct descendant—have struggled to defend high-value targets in the Ukraine War. The primary US Navy anti-surface weapon, the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), shares many design features with the Storm Shadow—subsonic speed, a low-altitude flight path, and stealth characteristics. But in many ways, it is significantly more threatening. The LRASM is much newer and employs an intelligent and highly-classified targeting system that can coordinate with other missiles, dynamically react to air defense threats, and strike a ship at its most vulnerable point, all while being immune to radio-spectrum jamming. Moreover, it can be launched en masse from a wide variety of survivable platforms, which will soon include the carrier-based F-35C stealth fighter and in several years, the 6th-generation B-21 bomber. This will present serious challenges to the survivability of PLAN vessels, who will struggle to field counter-air capabilities to defeat stealth technology at sea.

The extensive fleet of US attack submarines will also pose a serious threat to PLAN carrier strike groups. While the PLAN has achieved parity with or even surpassed the US Navy in other metrics, the US Navy still reigns supreme in the subsurface realm, possessing 66 nuclear-powered submarines to the PLAN’s 12. These submarines are also much larger and quieter than their PLAN counterparts, and possess over 1,100 combined Vertical-Launch System (VLS) cells for launching weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles, while the PLAN’s submarines have yet to incorporate any. This could allow US submarines to launch surprise attacks on PLAN vessels with both torpedoes and missiles, which are much more difficult to defend against than weapons launched from longer ranges by platforms whose position is roughly known, although it is worth noting that PLAN doctrine on ASW is steadily improving. This considered, unless A2/AD attacks by the PLA prove stunningly effective, the US Navy will likely maintain control over the middle-western Pacific in the event of a conflict. As such, it can safely be assumed that PLAN carriers will not be able to operate beyond the first island chain without placing themselves at significant risk.

However, most intriguing is the seismic shift away from naval aviation that may be occurring far beyond the PRC’s waters. External to the PLAN’s strategic calculus, experts have expressed concerns that even the US Navy may be over-relying on the aircraft carrier as its principal force-projection asset, given the more economical substitute capabilities and the increasing offensive potential of more numerous and survivable surface combatants. Naval analyst Cameron Rountree argues in the Naval War College Review that in the future, the US Navy should begin transitioning to Aegis warships as its primary offensive weapons—massive cruise missiles assaults from vessels with potent self-defense capability are much cheaper and robust than expensive carrier operations with decreasing operational value, although Rountree also acknowledges shortcomings with this approach. Regardless, for an entity with an even more expansive ecosystem of offensive and defensive A2/AD weapons, this approach should be all the more appealing to the PLAN. In a conflict against the US, their massive arsenal of cruise and ballistic missiles may negate any unique capabilities provided by naval aviation. Given the immense cost of routine aircraft carrier operations versus relatively cheap missiles, the ultimate issue is cost-effectiveness, and the minimal marginal utility of naval aviation may be unappealing. In fact, some argue that the aircraft carrier is now implicated in a similar strategic competition to one it once prevailed in against battleships during World War II. Rountree writes,

This multivarious proliferation of weapons and capabilities imposes a need for a doctrinal paradigm shift reminiscent of the alternating tactics that World War II-era naval leaders employed in their use of battleships and carriers. When today’s newly propagated dangers are combined with long-existing technologies- such as coastal-defense cruise missiles (CDCMs), antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs), mines, midget submarines, and torpedoes— the operational environment for carriers becomes daunting.

The threats Rountree mentions would be even more potent when employed against PLAN forces en masse given that the PLAN has yet to demonstrate operational competency with core defensive naval technologies, such as Anti-Air Warfare (AAW), missile defense, and ASW.

Looking to the Future

While limited by present circumstances, the PLAN’s investment in carrier airpower clearly reflects national ambitions that extend far beyond the near-term threats to China’s territorial interests. In 2017, Xi Jinping famously set a timeline for PLA military development, with “mid-century” being the target for achievement of a “world-class” force. There has been much debate on what the scope and specificities of this objective are, but there is significant evidence to suggest that it is not merely a technological benchmark, but a geostrategic one. In 2009, PLAN Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhang suggested that naval expansion beyond the first island chain is necessary and therefore inevitable to “expand [the PRC’s] strategic depth of security for its maritime territories.” One of the clearest technological indications of the PRC’s global military ambitions is the PLAN’s development of the KJ-600, a carrier-based early-warning aircraft akin to the US Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye. Both the land-based KJ-200 and KJ-500 have sufficient range to provide radar coverage for PLA operations well beyond the first island chain, suggesting that the PLA is posturing its force structure for eventual operations far beyond their coastal waters. While it has been argued in previous years that the PLAN is not equipped to operate carrier strike groups far beyond its coastal waters due to its lack of attack submarines, catapult-equipped carriers, and carrier-based air-control platforms, these capability gaps have narrowed significantly over the past 13 years. The PLAN is rapidly gaining legitimate blue-water naval capabilities, which will advance significantly with the commissioning of the Type 003. Recently, several PLAN surface combatants sailed alarmingly close to the Australian Coast and performed live-fire drills, no doubt in an attempt to flex this developing “blue water muscle.”

Of course, these long-term projections on the future trajectory of the PLAN assume a peacetime environment that allows for unmolested maneuvering of naval forces, as has existed for the US Navy since the end of the Cold War. This would likely be feasible for the PLAN, and it may eventually be able to operate its carrier strike groups globally without any legal obstacles. If the PRC intends to power-project in peacetime with their aircraft carriers, there are shrinking political barriers to it doing so. By 2035, the PLAN might well be conducting such operations. However, the logic for deploying these assets globally can only remain sound if the PLAN remedies critical deficiencies in two areas, which will be a challenging endeavor in the face of dynamic US resistance, which is seeking ever-evolving means to deny the PLA control of the air and sea.

As already discussed, the first of these is effective defensive naval systems to insulate carrier strike groups from attack by all manner of threats. Were a global conflict to break out, isolated PLAN carrier strike groups would find themselves vulnerable at the hands of US naval and air forces, who have much operational experience in force-projection—the world is essentially the US Navy’s backyard. The PLAN has no doctrinal equivalent to the US Navy’s Cold War experience with fleet defense tactics, and significant capital would need to be devoted to preserving the power projection capability of the PLAN’s aircraft carriers beyond the protective umbrella of land-based defenses.

The second critical deficiency facing the PLAN’s global naval ambitions is overseas basing. While the PRC is actively expanding its portfolio of basing options, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, whether these will be viable naval assets in both peacetime and wartime is unclear, and in some cases, unlikely. Nations may be unwilling to politically endorse the PRC’s military mission, especially in a live conflict, which would place the PLAN’s high-seas sustainment abilities to the test. The US Navy has benefitted from a large swath of friendly ports worldwide and has developed critical technologies for sustaining their fleets overseas without relying on port calls for resupply. Its aircraft carriers and attack submarines are nuclear powered, it has developed an extensive ecosystem for resupplying its ships at sea, and methods have been tested that might even allow US warships to reload missiles without a return to port. These platforms and doctrines take years, if not decades to develop, and the PLAN will likely struggle to mature them in the near term. While some elements of the PLAN’s force structure appear to be postured for far-term global maneuvering, the PRC’s focus will likely remain on their most pressing near-term interests. A report from the National Defense University found little evidence that significant resources are being devoted to constructing a global infrastructure capable of sustaining worldwide military operations, meaning the PRC’s aircraft carriers will likely be confined to near-term, near-shore operations for the time being.

At first glance, the PRC’s pursuit of carrier airpower seems to be a cost-inefficient endeavor, and in relation to some mission sets, it arguably is. As it stands, PLAN aviation is unlikely to play a consequential role in a US-China conflict, and the PRC’s long-term ambitions for a global military are hamstrung by technological and political challenges, as well as the presence of rival naval powers. However, evidence is present that the PLA is acutely aware of both the strengths and weaknesses of their carrier force and is actively seeking a flexible doctrine of employing them in the face of looming challenges. Kostecka writes,

While it cannot be predicted with certainty how China will seek to employ its aircraft carriers and modern amphibious assault ships, authoritative open-source publications offer important insight into the potential operational roles of these platforms in both wartime and peacetime. More important, these writings clearly show that the Chinese military is aware of the flexibility of aircraft carriers and modern assault ships and likely views them as more than simply “one mission” platforms. Instead, they suggest, it will seek to employ them in a variety of traditional and nontraditional security missions in order to accomplish ‘diversified military tasks.’

Given their situational utility, the PRC’s investment in aircraft carriers cannot be termed as either genius or oversight. Critical to understanding the role that carriers play within the minds of PLA strategic planners is understanding the hierarchy of national interests at play. These are dominated first and foremost by sovereignty and resource-oriented concerns, which are most relevant in the South China Sea. As such, the PRC has developed their aircraft carriers primarily as regional intimidation tools, and they are formidable assets within the context of this mission set. However, the future may see an expansion of the PLAN’s carrier-based air capability and an accompanying advancement of surface-warfare technologies, which will be critical in bolstering the viability of these carriers to directly confront near-peer threats. However, given doctrinal shifts, whether the PRC’s global ambitions will be achieved through the use of aircraft carriers ultimately remains to be seen. Further studies might probe the maturity of the PLAN’s high-seas sustainment doctrine to gain greater insight on future plans.

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