While Gaza is hammered and the NAACP complains about Ole South Gowns in the Inaugural, strategic challenges loom
Today we have less than half that.
By 2015 China's submarine fleet ALONE will outnumber ours. Their navy will have 600 ships, and one fleet carrier.
If that's not enough.....China's military signaled last week that it is moving ahead with plans to deploy aircraft carrier battle groups, the most visible indication to date that Beijing now harbors global ambitions for power projection far beyond its coasts.Chinese military spokesman Col. Huang Xuebing announced that "China has vast oceans and it is the sovereign responsibility of China's armed forces to ensure the country's maritime security and uphold the sovereignty of its costal waters as well as its maritime rights and interests."
He then said that "China is "seriously considering" developing an aircraft carrier to its fleet, since "the aircraft carrier is a symbol of a country's overall national strength as well as the competitiveness of the country's naval force."
China's artistic rendering of its planned new aircraft carrier.
The comments come as China deployed advanced guided missile warships to waters near Somalia as part of the Chinese navy's first out-of-area operations to stem piracy.
On Dec. 31, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported from Beijing that construction of the first carriers would begin in Shanghai in 2010 with the goal of building two carriers by 2015. Quoting military and shipbuilding sources, the newspaper reported that China's military also would complete work on a Soviet aircraft carrier now based at the northern port of Dalian, and that it would be used for training.
The two new carriers will be deployed with the PLA navy's south fleet for patrols in the strategic South China Sea.
BTW, the interest we pay them for buying our T Bills are buying the ships built on our stolen technology, which paid for their spies, which will challenge us around the world.The three Chinese warships dispatched on unprecedented anti-piracy operations near Somalia are the most sophisticated guided missile ships in the PLA navy.The lead ship of the three is the DDG-169 Wuhan, a guided missile destroyed known as a Type 052 ship built in 2002. The U.S. Navy calls it a Luhan-class warship. It is considered the Chinese version of the U.S. Aegis battle management-equipped ships that are the mainstay of the U.S. Navy. The ship is outfitted with 16 anti-ship missiles, 48 surface-to-air missiles, a close-in weapons system and a helicopter.
The second ship, the DDG-171 Haikou, the Chinese navy's latest destroyer model, is one of the two Type 052C destroyers. It was built by Jiangnan Shipyard in 2003. The Haikou is equipped with a long-range air defense missile system and will provide air cover for the expeditionary Chinese naval force.
China's DDG-171 Destroyer before departure to the Gulf of Aden.
The Weishanhu, a supply ship, was built in 2003 and is the first ship to provide round-the-clock supply capabilities.
The ships are part of the South China Sea Fleet headquartered in Zhanjiang of Guangdong Province.
Meanwhile, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said last month that a Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer could be dispatched to Somalia to protect Japanese ships from pirates.
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