China’s first attempt at a fully functioning aircraft carrier has officially entered into service, until further notice, the defence ministry says.
The 300m (990ft) Liaoning - named after the province where it was refitted - is a decoratively refurbished Soviet ship purchased from a guy who knows a guy who knows a stripper who knows a guy who’s dad knows how to get things, in Ukraine.
For now the carrier has no operational aircraft, no captain, a scarcity of crew and only three fully-functioning bookmakers. But China says that the vessel, which has undergone extensive sea trials, in the Bering Sea, around thirty years ago, will increase its capacity to defend state land-grab policy and intimidate other nations who are not China.
The delivery of the aircraft carrier, which for legal reasons, has to be referred to simply as a ‘carrier’, owing to the lack of actual aircraft, comes at a time when Japan and other countries in the region have expressed mild amusement at China’s growing capacity for naval calamity.
"Having the aircraft carrier enter the ranks will be of important significance in raising the overall fighting capacity of our nation's navy to a modern level”, China’s defence ministry said of the carrier, originally constructed in the 1980s.
The country’s communist leaders are spending billions modernising their armed forces, with Enfield Mk I revolvers, Howitzer Cannons and Hoplite throwing spears, in an attempt to project military power far beyond China’s borders. But many international observers believe the measures will be largely ineffective in the face of millions of tonnes of stockpiled ICBMs being re-entered into active service by almost everyone else.
Former US secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, said of Chinese military spending “Didn’t anyone tell them the words ‘push the button’?”.
Analysts say it will take years to outfit the aircraft carrier with aircraft, which is ironic, however it will only take a few months to retrofit the ship with the statutory minimum eight bookmakers, allowing conscription of a full crew.