[rtnlTom]

THE PAPER DRAGON: WHY THE WEST SHOULD NOT FEAR GROWING MILITARY STRENGTH IN CHINA.
[An op-ed]
The notion of a rising China is something of a hot button topic in the world of international relations, security studies, domestic policy and so on and so forth until the end of the spectrum; a notion that shrills the throngs of arm chair politicos throughout our nation as well as pestering the officials whom are constantly bombarded by questions and concerns about the dragon across the way. In my first venture teaching at the university level I was charged with exposing my students to the political science major as best I could, and I could think of no better final project than a debate about what exactly to do about China. My aim was though, as is the aims of this small piece, to quasi create a un-concern amongst my students as well as whoever reads this. When I instructed my students to formulate arguments about the PRC from the view point of the United States and vice versa my goals were to teach them how to argue with the hopes that when buzz phrases cloaked in Red Scare rhetoric were slung their way whether academically or professional, they would know how to defend whatever position they had but also, to learn to not fear the Chinese.
Rising China. What exactly does that mean? For years, since Nixon opened those fabled doors to the west, rising China has meant that its economy was booming and was, even then, posed to become equals with the west…someday. We are after all still waiting for that someday but that is not the point of this article, any scholar could fill page after page with the trappings of economic endangerment that usually centers around any news on the PRC, and frankly, that horse has been beat as well. If one truly wants to dispel the mythos that China should be feared, they need to stay far, far away from anything with the word “economic” in it. I say this because of course one day they will surpass us; it is the very course of human events that nations rise and fall and in the case of the United States, level off and do okay for themselves. The fact that it is China is just a case of historical happenstance and if Russia had been opened to the west like China at such an early economic age, perhaps then the bear would be threatening the eagle with something other than teetering destabilization. So then what else are we afraid of about China, if the economic scares are not legitimately legitimate, than what is? And if something is worthy of being afraid of, how can we dispel such fear?
The only other pawn the PRC has in the media and at the end of a stick is their military. Why wouldn’t we be afraid of a military that encompasses more men and women than a hundred thousand veterans’ day parades combined? Well, first let’s identify two of the reasons why we do fear the PRC militarily and then hopefully we can offer up some equally insightful conceptions as to why everything will be okay. The two most prominent fears of Chinese military strength are their recent aircraft development and their desire for considerable naval expansion. After discussing these two practical hardware concerns I will offer more political and strategic reasons why the PRC is in fact a paper dragon and nothing more.

China’s 5th Generation Fighter: a New Kid in a Large Class
The news China has made on hacking alone would be reason enough for some people to rally the troops and blockade the Taiwan Strait, and why not? To be completely truthful the Chinese government has claimed to have hacked US defense industries and other government organizations from homeland security to federal banks. Our hunches about the PRC getting into Lockheed Martin’s basement were solidified when the PRC air service rolled out a working J-20 fifth generation aircraft, one that strikingly resembled our very own F-22 Raptor semi-stealth interceptor. This is of course cause for some concern, for some; but in reality the J-20 does not really pose a threat to the United States or anyone for that matter.
The reasons might not be all that intuitive and rely heavily on assertions about what we know not only about the J-20, but, about warfare as a medium. Firstly, the most prominent issue is this; we know very little about the aircraft other than its physical features outwardly appear similar and that it can fly with some duress, meaning it has been put through some of its paces and stands up structurally. However, the F-22 raptor is an internal systems fighter, meaning that its weapons systems are completely housed internally as well as any distinguishing instruments such as refueling probes, etc. Everything that makes the F-22 deadly and sophisticated is housed inside the fuselage. If we look at the J-20, we can see a similar design with what appears to be weapons bays and the like. Nevertheless, we cannot see inside the aircraft. It would be foolish to assume that a mock F-22 could not be built by anyone to look aesthetically like one; that is simply a matter of aerodynamics and nothing more. The point is and the point that needs to be made absorbedly clear is that what makes an F-22 an F-22 is what is on the inside not the outside. But what of the outside? The outside of an F-22 is semi stealth giving it a very low radar signature and is arguably aside from the thrust vectoring nozzles (Which the Russians have better ones of) the most important part of that aircraft. Although looking at pictures alone, which is all the civilian has at his or her disposal, we cannot assert whether the J-20 is stealth or not, we can assume it is not. Therefore the threat of the J-20 is not a threat at all for the following reasons: Stealth technology is the most guarded secret the US has second to nuclear launch codes and having a variable strike fighter is more of a big stick than a practical weapon of war.
The first reason we need not be worried about is China’s ability to hack into our defense systems and steal a stealth fighter is simply, that they didn’t. I am not saying they did not do it per say, I am merely stating that the information they did take has and will amount to little credible fruition. Stealth technology is America’s trump card, a sort of conventional left hand to our nuclear right; a right hand that has been dropping slowly in its ability to shake at the world since the early eighties and perhaps has been in our pockets since the Indians and Pakistanis went nuclear, being not exactly a threat anymore. It is not to say that nuclear weapons are not a credible coercive force it has just significantly diminished now that more and more nations have gone nuclear. Factor in MAD and well, nuclear weapons have lost their punch. However, the United States still has one thing that no one else has, something we won’t even share with the UK and certainly will not sell to the Israelis in its top capacity, which is stealth. It is the one thing we can shake at the world and say we have it and you do not. We have demonstrated its destructive power time and time again, especially, to great effect in the many Balkan crises and the Persian Gulf. (It should be noted that although a stealth fighter was once shot down, it was an unguided lucky hit and was no big blow to the invisible fighters.) So then why would the Chinese stealing F-22 plans, plans that are for a stealth fighter, not be such a big deal? Because as mentioned before, we can intuitively assume that they didn’t steal that part.
This reasoning comes from analysis of what was just mentioned; if stealth is the United State’s trump card in world conflict, meaning that aside from everything else they are superior at, this is the one thing we are extremely alone at the top with, then we would not be sitting idly by if it were stolen. It is as simple as that. If the Soviets had gotten their hands on an intact U2 spy plane and not the crumbled chunks of Power’s craft, do you think the Kennedy administration would be so passive? Perhaps not. That being said there are a number of factors that could explain the US’s inaction, one of which we just mentioned, in that the Chinese only stole the aerodynamics of the craft, not its stealth components. Another issue though, could be rooted in the very example I used to prove the inaction. If the Soviets did get an intact U2, would we have acted in any capacity? If we look back historically, the Tu-4 was an exact copy of the most advanced bomber in the world at the time, the US B-29, and although we were outraged at the Soviet copy, we did nothing. We did nothing then and we did nothing when the Soviets kept the chunks of Power’s U2, because we couldn’t and it was more wise not to for the simple fact that tangling with the other power at the time was simply not an option. This could very well be the case now with China, a battle lost and a battle that has no action alternative, they stole it and we cannot do anything to get it back. But why?
The answer as to why the United States would allow another “Tu-4” to be produced in a foreign land might be far easier and less cowardly than simply it being safer to let our ace in the hole be captured than wage war over it. That answer is, who cares? The United States may simply be stating through its inaction that it does not care that the Chinese have the J-20, that they copied a stealth craft and so on and so forth. But why would the US not care? Well, why would we, stealth technology is old and it is easier to produce near stealth planes now than before. Aside from radar absorbing paint, something the F-22 didn’t have anyways, any country’s senior level RADAR expert could instruct an aerospace scientist to design a fuselage smooth enough to mask a radar signature. It is not about being completely invisible, which even the stealth bomber is not, it is about giving off as small a radar signature as possible and that is somewhat easily achieved through rounded smooth surfaces or angular ones. Besides, the real ticket is the radar absorbing paint, stealth is a universal concept but the paint isn’t, although not some magic cloak it helps a lot and one can almost guarantee that Lockheed Martin doesn’t keep the formula locked away in the same database as its airplane designs.
So, taking all of this in mind, it is more likely that the US doesn’t care about the attacks. Of course they will re work their systems and it will never ever happen again, but it certainly isn’t the end of the world and the dawning of a new security threat. Besides, it is one thing to be able to produce a craft at such technological heights as the F-22, it is another thing to know how to use it and the US military has learned through decades of perfecting it’s craft that implementation of a weapons system is far superior to the system itself; it may seem silly but the Chinese have no idea how to use the J-20. It appears that flying the J-20 would be the first and only step but it isn’t. How does one implement stealth warfare? When and where is it applicable? What are the squadron formations? How does one effectively use such a weapon; solo? In a strike group? How many do we need to produce? What are the best ways to dogfight? How do we retrain our pilots? There is a multitude of factors that go into the practical art of utilizing a new weapon. We know this historically as it took the west an entire war to figure out how to fight against a machine gun. So, for the time being, the Chinese may or may not have stealth and until they learn how to use it, it poses little threat.
The secondary reason why the J-20 poses little threat to the US, is that 5th generation fighter jets themselves pose little threat to anybody. The F-22 is an air superiority fighter that excels in the archaic art of dog fighting, something current fourth generation fighters like the F-15 excels at to the point of near perfection. Dog fighting is a lost tactic that modern missiles and range finding technology has rendered down to mere defensive methods. Engagements between fighters take place at hundreds of miles and the ability to quickly maneuver is only necessary if an enemy gets the jump on you, which again is rare given modern detection systems. Therefore with the ability of long range missiles and detection systems to widen the gap between engagements, it makes little sense to want to close it. So then why have a fifth generation fighter? Just like stealth or nuclear weapons it is nice to say that you have said abilities and that saying so is far more effective than utilizing them. What I mean by this is having an F-22 or a J-20 is far more menacing than actually using it when in reality it is just a flashy fourth generation fighter. The US prizes its 5th generation aircraft because it gains a lot of military clout when it can state to the world stage that “we have this and you do not”.
However, the US already cannot tout that it has something the rest of the world does not. Before the F-22 there was the Su-35 Terminator/Flanker that the Russians had developed an aircraft that can still out maneuver an F-22 and at a fraction of the cost, it would be more alarming if the PRC got a hold of this craft than if it were developing its own. Also, the Russian MIG 144, PAK-FA, and Su-47 Berkut look strikingly similar to the F-22 as well. For that reason we can close the segment on the J-20 by saying that it poses little threat to the United States because it is not the only one of its kind in the world, in that other countries have similarly designed fighters, and the threat of such a fighter is minimal because the United States rarely develops a weapons system for its own use that it does not already know how to effectively counter. In so saying, it was only a matter of time before an F-22 like jet surfaced in the PRC and in reality, who cares?
The Chinese Aircraft Carrier: A Pointless Serpent
The news that the Chinese navy, the PLAN, had received the hull and superstructure of a Russian Kiev class aircraft carrier stirred the international pot to the tune of a new emerging threat to the West. Although the receipt of an aircraft carrier is a sign of ambition and a sign of potential future growth; it is far from near sighted opinion to state that this one craft poses no threat at all what-so-ever. This may be stark but the United States Navy and their NATO constituencies have nothing to worry about from this Kiev carrier aside from showcasing an obviously offensive ambition on the part of the PLAN.
Why though? Why is the acquisition of a medium sized aircraft carrier by the PLAN nothing to concerned about? There are two main reasons: the first being that the Kiev is out dated and small and secondly that the Chinese are nearly seventy years behind the US alone in the operational art of carrier warfare. Let’s tackle the problems in order though and prove that the Chinese having an aircraft carrier is of little threat to the US. Firstly, the Kiev class carrier is small and outdated by modern standards. One could argue that so is the Nimitz class carriers with the Nimitz being built in 1975, however, there are ten ships in that class with the most recent being the George H. W. Bush being built in 2003. The hull design is original to the 1975 Nimitz but the computer systems, training and warfare suites are state of the art. The contrast is the Kiev the Chinese have been given. It is identical in every aspect to that of the last service operational Kiev carrier which finds it being in use in the mid 90’s before the Russian Navy retired or sold most of them. So, internally the Chinese carrier is outdated and will take some time to retro-fit. Despite being outdated, the carrier is also small, about half the size of the US’s fleet carriers meaning it lacks sufficient power plants to keep pace with the US fleet, not being nuclear powered, and it lacks sufficient firepower; only carrying 30 specialized STOL aircraft to the Nimitz’s 90 fixed wing aircraft. It simply cannot compete one on one.
However, and moving on to the second and most important point, competing with a super carrier one on one is not the issue. What really makes the PLAN’s carrier a zero threat to the west is that they simply do not know how to use it yet. That may come as a stark claim; I am certain that the PLAN know how to operate their Kiev Carrier (as well as the new one’s they are retrofitting) but there is more to the art of operating a carrier than simply starting up the engines and leaving port, maintaining the systems, and sustaining battle stations. The Japanese during World War II wrote the book on carrier warfare and made their legions of carriers the backbone of their fleet. It was the United States however that perfected the use of carriers in multiple roles. Roles such as invasion and occupation support as well as how to utilize carriers in ship to ship combat. A US carrier strike fleet is something to behold, and I will leave it at that for now. The art of carrier warfare takes years to study and even longer to practically implement; not to mention the PLN would have zero years of combat experience where as the US has decades of killing with carriers under their belt.
So in short, it doesn’t matter if the PLN get’s its hands on ten carriers; it would still be outnumbered and out trained by the US navy by tenfold. The technology is unproven and out dated, even the Soviets never used their Kiev’s in combat, and the Chinese carrier fleet is non-existent and has no operational record to learn from. What I mean by this is that the PLN lacks the support ships to aid a carrier (a carrier never goes anywhere alone and the Akula and Oscar class submarines the Chinese navy owns are old, slow and loud) and even if they read and digested every book on US carrier strategy, having not slugged it out fleet to fleet ever before puts them at the wrong end of a sharp stick. I admit, the brevity of this section on what should be a lengthier opinion is potentially damaging to my argument. However, I think the brevity speaks volumes as well; the United State’s power and reach globally is the sole repercussion of our Navy. We spend a majority of our outlandish defense budget on making sure it is not only number one, but exceeds other nations by generations. The United States has nine super carriers with two more in berth as hulls, the next leading nation in super carrier numbers is Great Britain with a grand total of zero with half of one proposed to be built. This pointless serpent in the Chinese midst is just that, and the brevity of my mention of it just speaks to the hard truth that the US Navy cannot be touched by conventional means.
Conclusions: Fear not the Dragon
So, the J-20 and the Kiev(s) are nothing to fear. These new technologies of the PRC are new only to the Chinese. I do not want to downplay new technology too much however; we all know that the Maxim gun gave Germany and the rest of Europe egos beyond practice. So it is not to say that new technology in the hands of a nation ready to prove itself will not cause them to act. In fact, I would bet my money that the Chinese will act, and will lash out in Asia in order to shed them of the paper dragon notion and to prove themselves. Then what was the point of all this? The point was to ease the west’s fears of China, as for the rest of the world that is another story. To close out the recent build up of the Indian military coupled with the decade’s long tension between the two most populated nations in the world could boil over with each nation’s economies slowing and power in the region needing to go somewhere, Asia itself being the spoils. Testing the mettle of its dragon on the Indians makes marginally more sense than testing the United States. The Indian Army is below or at least level with the PRC’s forces and remember that entire huff I made about not having practical working knowledge of their new toys? What better way to get it than by picking on the third kid in line? So calm down everybody, the dragon is out there. It has new teeth. But in no way is that going to be anyone on this continents concern. When it comes to China and the United States, rational heads will certainly prevail.

Mod note: this looks to be an unsourced cut and paste. I'll let this one go ... but in future this section requires some original comments and some direction for future discussion

[rtnlTom]

To the moderator. It was written by me based on my opinions. So the source is me. I will compile a bibliography nevertheless

[Typhoon]

Be interesting to see where this information is coming from as the text contains a lot of errors.

I think this happens when someone starts with a point and then goes out to prove it, while I agree with the general theme that China is not a military menace it is not won by the technical argument presented here.

[rtnlTom]

We have never seen China fight since it's infantry movements in Korea. We have no other way to gage them other than on paper through tech.

[Igor Antunov]

We saw china fight against india over a decade later and then much later against vietnam on land and on the seas.

[rtnlTom]

That is all well and good, but 25 plus years ago tells us nothing about how they would maneuver now, using that dated of information is like pushing a reset button

[unbalanced zealot]

To the moderator. It was written by me based on my opinions. So the source is me. I will compile a bibliography nevertheless

Ok. Sorry then for the misunderstanding. No need to add an bibliography unless you wish to. UZ [Asia-Central mod]

[Typhoon]

Wanted to get back to this post for a while, but had no time. Firstly I would probably disagree that the military technical argument is the best or only way to assess if China is a threat, especially considering the large amount of material generated by China herself and those nations around her. Actually I think the economic and political reasons would be the strongest suits in the argument. But then considering that the rising China threat argument is fuelled by Chinese military expansion it is good to try and de construct these points. However surely it would be far better to critically analyse the topic and see what comes out rather than just try to generate arguments to support one side, after all China might be a concern after all, lets have a look...

In terms of the carrier argument then I agree broadly with your conclusion that it is little threat to the US navy currently however this is not helped by the huge number of factual mistakes made! Firstly the carrier in the discussion is not the carrier China has, the Liaoning is not a Project 1143 or 'Kiev class' design but a Project 1143.5 'Kuznetsov class' design. Now China does have two Project 1143 carriers, the Kiev and Minsk but these were converted to a theme park and hotel no longer worrying anyone, unlike India's Project 1143 Admiral Gorshkov. Secondly the statement that the carrier is essentially the same as when it served in Russia is untrue, she was supplied incomplete and any observation of the vessels super-structure indicates extensive alteration of the vessels systems. To highlight one system the carriers four Type 346/8 phased arrays are more modern than anything the Kiev ever carried as the Soviet Mars-Passart radar system was a failure. Finally the Chinese Navy does not operate Akula or Oscar submarines, which are by most professional opinions current and very capable.

Overall the problem with the argument is that it is too focused on the present and that the intent of China to operate a carrier force will be of considerable concern for a future US position in the region as all of the arguments presented diminish with time. We cannot but acknowledge and look to these points when we consider emerging threats over a reasonable time frame. That the lack of ships and training makes China's carrier little threat (while currently true) is certainly short-sighted.
While the initial design is underweight against a US carrier there is a known desire to build more carriers and future designs may well be more capable in terms of air-wing and power plant (China does after all use nuclear reactors at sea), while perhaps not meeting US carrier standards or numbers at this point they will very much out gun every other nation in the region, including many US allies and will start to pose a threat to individual carrier groups as a concentration of force against a US force that is spread globally.
In terms of training then the point that the Chinese are operating a carrier now makes that argument very weak and weaker with every year that they operate. Its always harder to forge ahead than it is to catch up, seventy years of experience will account for little once China has practised a full spectrum of operations with its new carrier. If the UK feels it can go without a carrier for a period and then regain currency in short order on commission of the new vessels I cannot help but feel that the training argument is overstated.

In terms of the future fighter arguments again we have a lot of factual inaccuracies. First the F-22's thrust vectoring nozzles are a low observable design (at least with regards to anything else out there), Russian designs are better at vectoring (3D rather than 2D) but suffer from returning a higher radar signature. Second is that the US is the only nation with stealth technology, this is false as many nations have explored low observability concepts from Germany during WWII, the US had a lead with the application of the technology but everyone else is applying it now as well with in most cases an equal theoretical understanding. Thirdly the F-117 shot down by Yugoslavia was certainly a guided shot, it was made possible by sloppy operational practices on the part of the US and a highly trained air defence force that knew how their equipment operated and had a comprehension of what they faced.

The argument made against the appearance of the J-20 as a threat is convoluted and very odd, it just come down to so what! That’s not an argument against a threat that is a state of being resigned to the issue because nothing can be done about it, so just try and ignore it, in this the statements on the Tu-4 and U2 are spot on, the US cannot do anything about this loss of technology and must accept that China has an air force with an advancing capability that will be wearing down any current edge or imbalance between them.
The idea that we cannot assess by viewing the characteristics of the new stealth fighter is quite wrong in my opinion. There is a reason the F-22 looks the way it does, by viewing the F-22 we can observe it is a stealth fighter due to its shaping and the same can be said of the J-20. What we cannot assess is to what degree it is stealth as shaping is only one aspect of signature reduction and we do not know what radar absorbent materials they are using, if any. However we should note that radar adsorbent materials are not magic and just the same as shaping if you understand the physical principals behind the technology you can work out how to make and apply the technology. The J-20 is a credible stealth design and cannot be dismissed by what we do not know about it.
Finally in terms of application of technology the F-22 has never used in combat and in this respect is no better than the J-20, the US has some experience of operating the aircraft and has used other (though quite different in role) machines with stealth in warfare but I don’t think this is a serious argument.

So if we take from this that China does possess a stealth fighter and a carrier fleet now and that over time these assets will become more numerous and capable we can see that China is most certainly a threat to western interests in the region and beyond. The conclusion is even odder in this respect by acknowledging these points but dismissing it as purely an Asian problem beyond western concerns, if there is a war in Asia in the near future it should be made abundantly clear that it will be a huge concern for the West and Chinese military expansion plays into this!

[rtnlTom]

I see your point, and it is a good one. The point of this article was to show a non-need for short term fear of China militarily which is something folks like me and you are not afraid of. I concur that down the road it might get dicey. However, i do not agree with your assertion that the generational gap in carrier experience can be made up by running the full gambit of tests and practices. There is a large difference between practice and war and as I point out in the conclusion until China tests its paper Dragon in war, dealing death, they will remain not no threat but little. It is the analogy of training to hit a fastball and actually playing in a game. Anyways, I would also like to point out that saying my information was wrong in asserting that the carrier was a Kiev even though it was a later version of a Kiev with a new name and a .1, is weak, it is a Kiev based carrier in hull design, but I am not here to argue technicalities and such, I merely wanted to parlay any short term fears of a baby military. Yes, long term it may cause a problem but I am still seated in my opinion that until the Chinese Army kills someone, it is of no threat to us except long term and on paper. And I am not saying that a war in Asia is no concern to the US, you mistake my assertions, it is just of little initial concern because we would likely physically sit it out if not directly involving us. Besides it would most likely be short. And as for my "So what argument" about the J-20, of course these technologies can be figured out as you pointed out and that is why it is a so what issue, it was only a matter of time before they figured it out and the same thing applies to the carrier; but the US trumps the Chinese in use of the tech and again, and not to beat a dead horse, the point of the conclusion was to state that until the Chinese kill someone with this tech, it will remain a paper dragon.

[Igor Antunov]

So if they killed some goat herders in a 3rd world or micro-country with a stealth bomber it would then be proven tech? Because that's how US hardware has been proving itself since ww2.

[Typhoon]

Yes, long term it may cause a problem but I am still seated in my opinion that until the Chinese Army kills someone, it is of no threat to us except long term and on paper.

Problem with that mentality is that you never really see the threat coming, its like saying that until war happens there's no chance of war. I think our policy makers should be a little more predictive than that. When we see Chinese security forces repressing areas like Tibet it does pose some serious concerns considering locals tensions concerning land.

However, i do not agree with your assertion that the generational gap in carrier experience can be made up by running the full gambit of tests and practices.

The USN must believe it can because the last time USN carriers were particularly involved in naval warfare was WWII, OK the USN has been involved in a lot of wars for sure but these have been wars of insurgency or against third rate powers rather than a major power with an actual navy to use. So in this respect the USN is not so different from China in they are both learning from the text books, direct experience is better but no one really has that anymore and the lessons are much less relevant than they were as the nature of the warfare has changed considerably.

Anyways, I would also like to point out that saying my information was wrong in asserting that the carrier was a Kiev even though it was a later version of a Kiev with a new name and a .1, is weak, it is a Kiev based carrier in hull design, but I am not here to argue technicalities

I would consider it more than a technicality, the project number may be incremental and the design derived from Kiev but there is a world of difference between the Kiev and Kuznetsov classes, it would be like calling Nimitz an Enterprise.

[Political Interest]

What is there to fear? This is reality. China is developing. If some people cannot handle this fact then it is their problem.

[Franker65]

What is there to fear? This is reality. China is developing. If some people cannot handle this fact then it is their problem.

I agree with you on that. I also think the original text has a lot of errors - the UK is not the second supercarrier power after the United States. The Kuznetsov and I presume Liaoning are slightly larger vessels than the Charles De Gaulle. We'll see where Britain stands if its new carriers ever get commissioned. Its important to accept the reality of the situation - China has developed incredibly quickly - look at statistics on how much Chinese military spending has risen. You make a good point that the inside of the F-22 and F-35 are what count in comparison to the outside.

However, China have now produced two stealth fighter aircraft and the United States can hardly sit back and expect these aircraft to perform like MIG-21s. It will also be interesting to see the quantities of aircraft manufactured in the future. The reality of the situation is that the F-35 is almost unaffordable, far less F-22s have been produced than was expected and the Chinese could well churn out hundreds of new stealth fighter aircraft to go along with their large and presumably effective J-10 fleet.

The Chinese carrier situation will progress. New, larger ships will be constructed in China and when they are commissioned, the trained pilots and crew members of the Liaoning will be there to run them. I still think the Chinese are years away from challenging the US Navy in the Pacific but they have progressed hugely over the past decade. Give them another 10 years and I'm sure a lot of people will be surprised.