From: sanjeev nayyar
The announcement that China’s first aircraft carrier is ready to set sail as early as this month-end has refocused attention on the larger Chinese naval ambitions. So also has the Pakistani defence minister’s disclosure that his country recently asked China to start building a naval base at the strategically positioned Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. More important, the dual revelations underscore China’s preference for subterfuge in making strategic moves.
After it bought the Soviet-era, 67,500-tonne Varyag carrier— which was not fully complete when the Soviet Union dismembered— China repeatedly denied it had any intention to refit it for naval deployment. For example, Zhang Guangqin, vice-director of the Chinese State Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, said in 2005 that Varyag was not being modified for military use. However, work to refit Varyag had already begun earlier in Dalian, China’s main shipyard.
Yet, to deflect attention from the real plan, the idea to turn Varyag into a “floating casino” off Macau was put forward through the state-run media. And to lend credence to this idea, the smaller two of the three Soviet-era aircraft carriers, including Varyag, bought by China during 1998-2000 were developed into floating museums—one of them briefly before the carrier itself was scrapped. The first official acknowledgement that China was turning Varyag not into a floating casino, but into a fully refurbished, deployable aircraft carrier came this week, just when it became almost ready to set sail.
Subterfuge is also apparent in China’s additional plans at Gwadar, where a Chinese-built but still-underused commercial port opened in 2007. From the time it began constructing the port, Gwadar was widely seen as representing China’s first strategic foothold in the Arabian Sea and being part of its strategy to assemble a “string of pearls” along the Indian Ocean rim. It was known that Gwadar, which overlooks Gulf shipping lanes, would eventually double up as a naval base. Yet all along, Beijing continued to deny Gwadar had any role other than commercial.
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