by JENS KASTNER
On the morning of August 10, the first China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy aircraft carrier left its shipyard in the port city of Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province for its inaugural sea trials. Simultaneously, at a trade show some 1,500 kilometers to the south, the Taiwanese military presented a supersonic anti-ship missile to the public, with its promotional poster clearly showing it destroying a vessel very similar to the Chinese colossus.
The combat scenario chosen by the missile’s promoters seems somewhat inappropriate in times of friendly cross-strait relations, but a closer look at the missile and the carrier reveal that the timing of their launches – for both Taipei and Beijing – was carefully chosen.
Firstly, for the time being, the military value of both China’s 300-meter-long, 65,000-tonne refurbished Soviet-era Kuznetsov-class carrier and Taiwan’s 6.1-meter, 1.5-tonne Hsiung Feng 3 (HF-3) missiles is questionable. Secondly, the first and foremost aim of both weapon systems seems to be sending signals, supporting its side’s leaders on the battlefield of domestic politics.
That China’s still unnamed aircraft carrier has finally started sea trials after having been turned by the Chinese – in a decade-long effort – from the skeleton of the Ukrainian-made Varyag into the starting point for a carrier program, was well documented by seemingly every media outlet in the world.
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