Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

China’s first ever indigenous aircraft carrier began its sea trials on the morning of 13th May, 2018. This new aircraft carrier, temporarily titled as Type 001A, was seen to set sail at 7:00 CST, from the Dalian coast in the northeast province of Liaoning. This maiden voyage of Type 001A marks the first step for the Chinese mission to build a navy equally strong as the world’s leading naval powers.

Prior to this, China’s first heavy aircraft carrier had been the Liaoning, which was a retrofitted Soviet-era war vessel bought from Ukraine in 2012. The Type 001A has been visibly modelled based on the Liaoning, even including the signature ski-jump inclination near the hull. The entire carrier is roughly 1033 feet long, and 246 feet wide, and uses conventional propulsion, rather than the widely used nuclear method, and is capable of displacing 50,000 tonnes on itself. Compared to this, the Liaoning is assumed to have a capacity of carrying around 30 warplanes on itself.

After the voyage was looked into it by American authorities, any threats were dispersed, as the US professors calculated that the Type 001A could not compare to the American naval power. However, despite the fact that the US Navy were confirmed to be way out of league for the Chinese navy, the latter definitely held more gravity in Asia. As of yet, statistics confirm that Japan is the only country which can rival the Chinese navy. However, whether China will be capable of surpassing the Japanese navy within 5 years to establish itself as the major Asian Naval Power still remains to be seen.

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