…And a 4701.00 Tflops supercomputer to hack government Gmail accounts with!
Should the US be wetting its panties yet or does that come when China develop stealth fighters / bombers? (…presuming they haven’t already).
They finally got an aircraft carrier? What took them so long?
N.B.: Just one carrier! All rest of girls have been vaccinized!
Carriers are for power projection into areas you don’t otherwise have bases near. China hasn’t felt the need to do that, for the most part, I assume. The only places China has threatened (Korea, Japan, Taiwan) are nearby.
If China decides to move into the superpower role as modeled by the US/UK, then they may feel that they need to get involved in “small” wars further away (like Africa) than has been the case up to this point.
Also, developing carrier ops from scratch takes a little time. Nowadays, you can google up how the US/UK/French do it, but there is still a ton of little details that go unsaid.
A “refurbished Russian vessel”? 
I’m not seeing the bed wetting possibilities here. When China builds 10 of it’s own designed supercarriers then we might need to be in full bed wetting mode.
It will be interesting to see when/if they complete it and how they use it. If they do extensive blue water operations with it and deploy it far from China that will be impressive, to be sure. if they are able to fly really high tech modern fighters off of it that will be impressive as well. It will be more than the Russians ever did with their carriers…presumably one of which is acting as at least the base for this Chinese carrier.
-XT
They’re trying to catch up with Brazil.
It’s interesting but not surprising. China has wanted to have an ocean going fleet for a while now and a carrier is pretty much the prestige piece they’d want to have.
What it does though is make it more interesting for the US. China obviously see the US ring of naval base/allies as either threatening or constraining. Taiwan, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea and Japan basically act as gateways any Chinese fleet would have to move through if they were push outwards. So does this fleet expansion lead to the US stepping slightly back to farther base stations like Guam and Australia and relieve some of the distress the Chinese might feel or do they ignore it?
Regardless, China is going to have to learn how to provision, manage and operate a deep water fleet and that takes a while.
The old, never-completed Varyag. Substantial vessel, but still rather smaller than American super-carriers.
Chill.
Yeah, I couldn’t remember the link. It’s one of the Soviets heavy aircraft cruisers, IIRC. Not exactly something to strike fear into even the Indian Navy’s heart, let alone cause the US to start wetting the bed over.
I thought I remember hearing it was going to be made into a casino or resort or something like that. Guess plans changed.
-XT
Thailand has a carrier? 
What for? Anti Piracy ops in the straits of Malacca?
(Heh. Just read the wiki entry on it.)
US military analyst already predicted ten by 2020. Four by 2015 already confirmed; two of which will be nuclear-powered.
Is that the bouquet of pee-pee I smell…?
You mean that hulk that’s been under contruction since 1985 might finally be launched? Color me not scared and wake me when its properly comissioned.
Cite? This seems an incredible claim. China is going to build 10 air craft carriers in less than 10 years?? What is the evidence that they have even laid down that many hulls?? How would they freaking train the CREWS in less than 10 years? Where would they find the naval air craft to man the things in that time frame? How would they build the logistics to support them in that time frame??
Seriously, you are going to need some cites to swallow this one.
It has the odor of bullshit to me…or, perhaps the distinctive odor of too much weed.
-XT
2 by 2020, maybe, according to this 2011 report http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/156520.pdf “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress”
In my opinion, the stated timeframe is… overly optimistic. If they counted the foreign hulls already purchased, they would only have to build six, assuming that the foreign hulls were made operational.
Hull number “911”, how cool is that?
Besides the 2 carriers that article mentions are between 50 and 60,00 tons while current American carriers come in a +100,000 tons. That’s a big difference when the whole point of a carrier is to have lots of planes that can project power.
Commissioned into the Thai Navy in 1997. Coincidence. 
Where does it say 10 air craft carriers? I see them mentioning possibly two (small) home built carriers (supposedly to be ready by 2012…which, if it were true, they wouldn’t be talking about refurbishing a carrier designed in the 60’s and unfinished when the Soviets went tits up). Googling shows that the Chinese bought several carriers from the Soviets, but none of them would be very easy to rebuild (one was the Minsk, which was being used as some sort of theme park).
I could see the Chinese building a couple of small carriers to gain some experience. They would be like what the Marine Corp has, perhaps. I could see them referbing an old Soviet carrier. But building their own, modern and fully capable air craft carrier capable of launching modern fighters? Let alone 10 of the things in 9 years?? No way.
Even if they did the impossible and built the things, what would they do with them? It will take them years to figure out how to effectively use and support ONE big carrier…let alone an entire fleet.
-XT