The U.S. Navy will remain quantitatively and qualitatively superior to the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) over the next 10 years in numbers of aircraft carriers since China has no intention of matching the Americans carrier for carrier.
The PLAN will likely not need to match the 11 aircraft carriers (all of them nuclear-powered supercarriers) operated by the U.S. Navy, said Zhu Yingfu, chief designer of China's only operational carrier, the CNS Liaoning (CV-16).
"The United States says it needs 11 carriers. We may not need that many. But there should be at least three. If conditions permit, there should be four or five," said Zhu.
Zhu's comments confirm those made by the PLAN leadership in early 2017 about the number of carriers PLAN will need to confront the Americans.
Last year, authoritative Chinese sources said China has plans of building a fleet of six aircraft carriers -- some of them nuclear powered. The aim of having a large carrier fleet is to consistently pierce the First Island Chain to achieve command of the sea.
The First Island Chain is China's geopolitical term for a string of islands that includes the Kuril Islands; the Japanese Archipelago; Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, northern Philippines and Borneo.
In the long run, China needs to develop its own aircraft carrier battle teams, said Xu Guangyu, senior advisor to the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. Xu said this aim will require at least six aircraft carriers, guided missile destroyers, as well as attack submarines.
China must build about 10 naval bases for the six carriers. Xu said these bases can be built in friendly Pakistan, which is China's only major ally in Asia. China has no other military allies in Asia apart from Pakistan and North Korea.
China might have based on every continent, but this depends on countries that want to cooperate with China, said Xu.
The second of these six aircraft carriers, the CNS Shandong (CV-17), awaits commissioning into the PLAN. The fourth to sixth carriers remain in the planning stage.
Six carriers will mean the PLAN will remain tactically inferior to the U.S. Navy. Apart from its 11 operational Nimitz-class supercarriers, the U.S. Navy has built the lead ship of the new Gerald R. Ford-class and is building two more of these monsters.
An American military analyst said the U.S. Navy and the capability for the U.S. Navy "will still be superior to the Chinese Navy in 10 years."
