2012-01-26 (China Military News cited from businessweek.com and by Paul M. Barrett) — An Admiral Kuznetsov-class warship, the vessel was to be 1,000 feet long, with a displacement of 65,000 tons. For a carrier of that vintage, the Varyag would be a middleweight, envisioned as the platform for several dozen short-takeoff, vertical-landing fighter jets, as well as 8 or 10 helicopters. By contrast, a U.S.S. Nimitz-class supercarrier has a load displacement of nearly 100,000 tons and room for at least 70 planes, many of them longer-range. The Varyag’s keel was laid at the Mykolaiv Shipyard in southern Ukraine and, though not finished, it took to the water in 1988. Two years later the ship-in-the-making seemed to be on its way to joining Moscow’s Black Sea fleet.
Then the USSR fell apart in 1991, and Ukraine inherited the still-unfinished Varyag. It was starting to resemble an aircraft carrier, the sort of vessel found at the core of any first-tier navy. The ship had a distinctive ski-jump incline at one end, meant to help launch aircraft. (American carriers have flat flight decks equipped with mechanized slingshots for the same purpose.) But the Varyag lacked critical elements, including electronics and engines. In 1992, as the former Soviet republics tentatively stumbled out of communism, construction of the ship ceased altogether. Ukraine couldn’t afford to complete the vessel, according to a dispatch from the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS. Still, TASS added, “the project has already cost the budget a pretty penny, and it would be absurd to scrap the ship.” Engineless and rusting, the Varyag languished at anchor.
Warship? Never! The two-decade voyage of the Varyag—from Russian castoff to Macau pleasure palace to China's first aircraft carrier
Devoted almost exclusively to coastal defense, the 500-vessel Chinese navy has long suffered a powerful case of aircraft carrier envy. During a meeting of the country’s Central Military Commission on Jan. 21, 1958, Chairman Mao himself proposed the construction of “railways on the high seas”—oceangoing fleets of merchant ships escorted by carriers—according to a 2010 article in the Naval War College Review by Nan Li and Christopher Weuve, faculty members at the U.S. Naval War College. Mao’s idea died for lack of funding, as did a plan in the 1970s to acquire a late-model carrier from Britain. In the 1980s, General Liu Huaqing, then the commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, expressed his chagrin about the lack of a carrier. Liu, an intimate of Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, wore oversize aviator-style glasses and typically had a doleful look when photographed in his pea-green uniform. He had joined the Communist military in 1931 at the age of 14. “Without an aircraft carrier,” he declared in 1987, according to the state news agency Xinhua, “I will die with my eyelids open”—meaning he would depart this life with a dear wish unfulfilled.
Liu retired from the military in 1997. When the Varyag was acquired a year later, it became his best hope for meeting his reward with his eyes closed.
The ex-Soviet ship was not the first used carrier China had purchased. In 1982 Beijing bought the smallish (15,000-ton) Majestic-class carrier Melbourne from Australia; it was dismantled for study and then scrapped. In 1998, the Russians sold China the much larger carrier Minsk, and, two years later, one called the Kiev. After undergoing similar scrutiny by Chinese ship designers, the Minsk and Kiev were turned into floating amusement parks.
Beijing’s military planners do not have a made-in-China bias, observes Robert S. Wells, a former U.S. Navy commander who now advises the Pentagon as a private consultant based in northern Virginia. “They are eager to imitate foreign technology,” he says, “and they don’t have any concerns about intellectual property rights.” In December 2006 the South China Morning Post reported that the Chinese military had completed a large-scale model of a Nimitz-class carrier, apparently for training purposes.
In the last paragraph of the page 1 of this article, about what the former U.S. Navy commander, Mr. Wells, said: “They are eager to imitate foreign technology and they don’t have any concerns about intellectual property rights.”
Unlike the evil Chinese,I suppose that for a matter of gaining credibility to lash out their behavior, the westerners had been so careful and responsible related to Chinese inventions such as paper, powder, compass, just to name some of the inventions about the intelectual property issue.
Thus, for instance, due to the highest zealous regarding such matter – intelectual property – for sure the westerners had spent a touchy effort to find descendants of the inventor of paper in order to provide the payment of copyright for them. My fault that I’ve never heard it! Say, a hundredth of a cent of dollar for each sheet of paper the westerners manufactured after tracking the time the paper arrived in the West and since then is diligently paid the due copyright.
And also due to the usual inherent sense of dignity, never dare to use a lame excuse such as, say, that it’s a so antique invention that the right for claim for copyright had already perished, becoming of popular dominium…
The carrier is not so much a castoff, rather a fancy toy Russia could no longer afford to have. China got it with zero mileage on it and put more advanced equipments on there than its sister ship could ever have. In fact, no parts of the ship are Russian because even the steel structure are Ukrainian.
Get your facts straight! The former Varyag has never been officially renamed the Shu Lang.
so what yan…..it may be shu or pu or hu lang…but it is an old….and now been put wid sm weapons….damm
“A fancy toy Russia could no long afford to have” More like a POS that Ukraine no longer wanted!
Re read your paragraph,you contradict yourself….Too funny
rofl, Russia can barely afford the one they already have which is a decade older than this one. It was a new toy they planned to add but USSR broke up. Of course Ukraine cannot afford it being newly independent from the bankrupt union. It was an empty steel structure, china had to outfit with 21st century technology from inside out.
Don’t even bother if u don’t know shit.
21ST century tech? If you think that POS is modern,you don’t know shit!
Here are the real Carrier’s of the world:http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/us-navy-aircraft-carriers.asp
Well, its no game changer. But ASBMs sure are.
Which China has too few of and the lack of ways to launch them! They would get destroyed in that fight!
lol there won’t be a fight, all of them would be destroyed by chinese missiles first.
Instead of looking like an idiot,look up the facts,before you talk about China’s missle.
I hope the first one lands on your house,since you live in the U.S. You damn hypocrit!
Wait, let me give them my address.
rofl China has no intention of invading U.S, only the other way around.
Good job propping that Chinese missles can land on U.S soil tho, I agree your not a hypocrite for once.
Maybe a dozen can,but we can survive that…..Ulike China,that will be receiving hundreds
“rofl China has no intention of invading U.S, only the other way around.”
I never said they had that intention. Must be something that gets lost is translation with you!You seem to make stuff up that I say…geez!
“Wait, let me give them my address.”
I already have it
Never know who’s on the other end of the keyboard,now do ya!
It doesnt matter to me. Do me a favor and send them my address for me.
Damn right you didn’t use the word intention but you sure do like to flare up a imaginary fight on every article like a little diva seeking endless attentions. “O China has this! but we gonna destroy you!” Pyro the diva rofl sounds about right
Says the guy,that constantly bashes the country he lives in!
No matter what the headline on this website,you bring America into it. All I do is reply to your ignorance!
I think it just helps to produce a non-biased view. If Sam had lived in China. Some people might form the judgement that Sam lacks credibility since he knows nothing about the usa.
@Pyro, rofl whos talking america just now? you clown
Lol says the troll here as the attention seeking clown. If there is American bashing then you asked for it and deserved it. Especially on a thread like this. You are like the idiot wearing Yankee jersey and walk into a Red Sox game and ask why you got beat up rofl, what a moron.
Even when I don’t post,all you do is bash America! So stop blaming that on me….I swear,its like trying to have a discussion with a a little kid. All you do is throw a tantrum,when I disagree with you! Real mature.
Lol you have the guts to use the word tantrum when all you do is troll every thread you visit. There is not a single comment on this thread alone where you post anything remotely intelligent except “this is shit , that is crap”.
Exactly Pyro “look!! it’s me me me me me me me me me me i have to be the odd one here me me me me me me me me, o btw china is shit” It’s ok pyro have a snicker bar and calm your inner diva.
You jealous? Looks like you are lol
Looking forward to the Chinese spring
@ Pyro why did you create the philipine nation’s shame , you are the philipine person , why do you want to be Americans, you must accept your fate as the philipine ,do not deny, you only worked in america now , but that does not mean you become an American, you were just immigrants worker from philipine in America
Grandma wants you to go home to philipine next year , your brother want married his couple guys , becouse your brother as a first gay couple in philipina