Between civilian investments and growth of the military fleet, the Chinese navy is increasingly asserting its presence all over the globe, to the point of worrying the United States.
It must have been a floating casino. The Macau company which had paid 19 million euros to buy it had promised it. The aircraft carrier, built in Ukraine for Russia and sold to China in 2000, has never carried roulettes or slot machines. Renamed Liaoning, it became the first ship of its type for the Chinese navy. Its commissioning in 2012 confirmed the rise in skills of the shipyard in the province which gave it its name. She also silenced all those who judged the Chinese incapable of arming this type of boat.
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Seen from the United States, the 60,000 tons of the Liaoning are not very “diplomatic”, according to the term used by former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (1923-2023) to describe this type of ship. The evolution of the People’s Liberation Army fleet is closely monitored by Washington. In terms of the number of aircraft carriers in service, the Americans maintain the advantage: they have eleven.
The Chinese, however, have made a considerable leap with their third ship, the Fujian, launched in 2022 and currently in the testing phase. 316 meters long, it is equipped with electromagnetic catapults of the same technology as those which will be carried on the successor of the Charles-de-Gaulle. In the meantime, the Fujian is the second aircraft carrier in the world equipped with this system, after the USS Gerald-Ford.
XXL military buildings
Beyond the continued growth of the Chinese fleet, the investments made by Beijing in infrastructure linked to the navy are beginning to worry the Americans and their allies. In Africa, South America and the Caribbean, billions of yuan are invested in ports, 5G networks, space activities with civil and military applications. American General Laura Richardson expressed concern about this in March before the defense committee of the House of Representatives: “China is implementing our strategy of being present economically and militarily equipping our neighbors. »
China has invested in forty port projects, from the Bahamas to the tip of South America, and at both entrances to the Panama Canal. One of the most emblematic remains the megaport built for $3.6 billion (3.3 billion euros) in Chancay, Peru, 75 kilometers from Lima. It is intended to accommodate giant containers, or even XXL military buildings such as aircraft carriers. Le Monde Jeux Every day new crossword puzzles, Sudoku and found words. Play China also already has six nuclear-powered attack submarines and six nuclear ballistic missile submarines. “Water is the best insulator there is. Everything that is submerged is difficult to trace,” explains Clément Galic, co-founder of Unseenlabs, a French start-up which has launched thirteen satellites into space to identify activity in the oceans. Underwater, China should have sixty-five units by 2025 and eighty by 2035.
