‘China’s future aircraft carrier no source of tension’

‘Behaviour rather than aircraft carriers could trigger tension’:

CHINA: Chinese and American military experts have said that China’s future aircraft carrier is not a source of tension for the United States and other nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

About two weeks after China’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed its program to refurbish an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier, the still unfinished vessel commenced its maiden sea trial on Wednesday.

While some neighboring countries have expressed concern over the growth of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, such as Japan’s most recent defense white paper, Peter Singer, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, told Xinhua that he didn’t believe the Chinese carrier was a source that could worsen the current situation in the Asia-Pacific region.

“One should not be surprised that China, whose military and economic power has grown immensely over the last decades, would want to join the ‘carrier club’ along with states like the US, UK, Brazil, India, France,” Singer said in an email. I don’t think the carrier itself is a source of tension with the US,” Singer said. “I think the greater sources of regional tension remain the behavior and unresolved maritime,” he said.

Xinhua