It became iconic of a transformative naval capability in a manner that the older existing warships of the world began to fade into obsolescence as pre- Dreadnoughts. The Dreadnought was a highly successful warship induction marking the dawn of the 20 th century warfare at sea. It reminds us of the famous battleship HMS Dreadnought commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1906. The launch of the Type 001A is, indeed, a milestone in the development of China as a major naval power. A report indicates that a larger, next generation Type 002 carrier equipped with a steam catapult has been under construction since March 2015, and its follow-on carriers may be nuclear powered. Even though the Liaoning and the Type 001A are medium-sized conventionally powered (non-nuclear) vessels equipped with aircraft ski-jumps (not catapults), and thus far less capable than the super-carriers operated by the United States, the occasion was celebrated in China as a major achievement symbolic of China’s ‘great power’ status. The new carrier is likely to be commissioned in 2020 as Shadong. Less than five years after the China commissioned its first Soviet-origin aircraft carrier Liaoning in September 2012, it launched its first-ever domestic carrier– the Type 001A – on 26 April 2017. This post first appeared on the National Maritime Foundation and is republished with permission.
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