More 054A in HP

I kind of dropped the ball recently by not posting the 054A that just got launched at the HuDong shipyard. I will post a few pictures below, but I just got hold of the first picture of the 4th 054A from HP shipyard. Remember, the 3rd one only got launched a couple of months ago, so this is really pretty good progress.

Since this one is under construction, we can conjecture that HD shipyard also has another one also under construction. Which means, we are basically getting our 2nd batch of 4 054As this year. It has slight modifications to the first 4, but all the major sensors and weapon systems look the same. Which makes sense, because I think 054A pretty much satisfies all of the requirements of PLAN right now. It can obviously be improved, but China finally has a ship that is amongst the elites in the world in its class (Probably, the most comparable ship to it would be the Formidable class).

Anyhow, some pictures of 054A that just got launched a few days ago at HD shipyard. It was actually pretty impressive how fast it got launched. Most of the Chinese forums speculate that the 3rd 054A from HD and HP shipyard will get the numbers 569 and 571, which means they will be joining the SSF. I guess NSF is not exactly on top of the priority list these days.

ASBM - follow up

The original entry has received quite a bit of fanfare, so I thought I would push some additional thoughts across + look at some of the questions being posed. Thanks to the everyone who helped me with this. I do apologize for not getting to this earlier, because I have been quite busy recently.

The first thing I want to look at are the related parts from the DoD report. Page 21 has a section on ASBM. Page 26 has a section on recon/navigational satellites. It recognizes that China is working on this system and that it is also launching many reconnaissance satellites to help improve with identify, track and engage military target deep in the Pacific Ocean. We will explore C4ISR later on it this entry, but it's important to note that Pentagon is taking this threat seriously. Whether or not PLAN really does have something deployed currently or in 5 years, USN will have to prepare with having to face ASBM as one of the possibility. This could lead to changes in procurement (more ships with SM-3), refitting existing ships with SM-3 and maneuvers/path taken by a carrier group into the zone of conflict.

One of the questions I was asked was whether or not this has been tested. This really is not a question that I would have answer to. Generally speaking, we do not see important weapon systems until years after they are deployed. For missiles, they have specific testing sites that they go to for testing and target ships (basically 022 with a huge radar deflector as shown below) that they use for anti-ship missiles.

However, we normally don't get pictures or videos of testing from these tests. In some cases, we read about the tests later on, but there are no news releases like the ones we see out of China Lake. According to the original blog writer (I can't confirm this), the person in charge of researching ASBM guidance wrote a paper in 2000 called "Research into MaRV attacking slow-moving targets". And according to a recent interview with naval base designer, China has acquired the ability to strike moving targets with ballistic missile. In my opinion, they would not make this kind of statement unless they have test-fired the missile.

I also noticed numerous people wondering about why China does not just continue to develop supersonic cruise missiles. I think the issue is many people have bought into the fallacy that supersonic missiles like Yakhont, Sunburn and Club are carrier-killers. Without going into the extremely deep discussion over the pros and cons of supersonic missile, I think it's quite clear that PLAN does not think these supersonic missiles alone can defeat the air defense umbrella of a USN CVBG. They did not seem overly pleased with the technical problems endured in the deployment of Club missile. It has been named as impossible to stop by many reports out there, but China did not even do live firing of the missile on its new kilo submarines until 2008. In fact, PLAN has such high regard for the "Sizzler" that it is not using it on any other platforms. In the same regard, the development of 3M80MBE (improved Sunburn) also took longer than expected. The increased range on it compared to 3M80E was more due to the cruising altitude than motor/fuel improvement. Even though they purchased about 500 Sunburn missiles, they have only equipped it on the Sovs. In conclusion, the much hyped supersonic missiles by themselves are not carrier killers. The primary weapon used by PLAN right now is YJ-83 (which is subsonic with supersonic terminal phase). It is basically equipped on all of the modern large surface ships, fighter-bombers and 022 FACs. In order to defeat the Aegis umbrella, PLAN would have to carry out a well planned multi-axis attack from different platforms.

As shown in the INS Hanit hit, the best way to penetrate a modern AD is to catch it off-guard. I don't think PLAN could ever hope to catch a USN Carrier Group in that scenario with Anti-ship cruise missiles, because the entire system will be turned on by the time the ships enters the engagement area of YJ-83. If C4ISR network needed for ASBM is developed (this will be discussed later), then this would increase the engagement envelope for PLAN. It would either force the US Carrier group to turn its air defense system on earlier (which would basically expose its positioning) or it could catch the carrier group completely off guard. If this ASBM system works as we talked about, USN would be forced to change its tactics in coming into the warzone. The other part that is special about ASBM is that it's just a lot harder to score hard kills than cruise missiles. I know that SM-3 has many successful tests, but it has never really tested against something with the flight characteristics of ASBM variant of DF-21. I'm not saying that it can't intercept it, but we don't know what it's success rate would be. I'm sure a salvo of DF-21 coming would pose more threats than a salvo of modern Anti-ship cruise missile. I have looked at the much talked Kilo/Club and Sov/Sunburn systems as over-hyped, but I do believe this ASBM system could be worth the attention given to it.

Another major question that came up was the process of searching for, finding and getting accurate enough data for targeting purpose. It is quite clear that OTH radar would not be able to do all of that by itself. Therefore, other parts of the C4ISR would have to do the identification after given a general area to look into. When it comes to identification, the possibilities include satellites, UAV/MPAs and SURTASS ships. There are pros and cons to each identification tool.

The first one to look at is reconnaissance satellites. In the original blog, the author stated that carrier groups can be identified, because it is likely to maneuver in completely different pattern than normal shipping groups. That actually is not true from my discussion with Jonesy, who explained to me that USN carrier group will make deceptive maneuvers so that it will not be easily identified at the sea. After all, a large group of ships moving straight toward battle zone at 30 knots would not only be spotted by satellites but also by a ship equipped with a modern navigational radar. Therefore, in order to identify the target, China would need satellites that have 10 m resolution and also have data relay set up to receive all the imaging data from the satellites. In a way, this would almost eliminate the possibility of using micro-EO satellites, because of the resolution requirements of the imager and the power requirements associated with focusing in on certain altitudes, storing that information and transmitting it back to ground station for data-processing. Going through Sinodefence, you will notice that Ziyuan 2 satellites and Yaogan satellites both have the resolution needed to identify a carrier from up top. The problem is that a large portion of these satellites are on sun-synchronous orbits, meaning that they pass by a spot once a day. Considering that these 2 series only have 9 satellites, it could only guarantee that satellite passes by one spot every 2 to 3 hours. According to SDF, the field of view for SAR radar of Yaogan satellite is 40 km at high resolution mode. This means, if the ship moves 20 km after the initial detection by OTH radar, it could be outside the FOV of satellite's radar. I'm assuming here that USN knows the orbital patterns of Chinese satellites and would take a path that would minimize the chance of detection by those satellites. Of course, the solution to this problem is to simply launch more reconnaissance satellites capable of achieving high resolution. I think that satellites is a reasonable solution for IDing carrier groups, but it is vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons like SM-3.

The second one to look at is aerial assets like UAVs and MPAs. For the latter, we are talking about Y-8 special missions planes. Unfortunately, China has very small number of these type of planes (in single digits) and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Even though the shipbuilding industry has been able to crank out ships at rapid speed, the aerospace industry can barely assemble a few Y-8 platforms every year. In any war scenario, the MPAs are unlikely to play a major role in identifying carrier groups that are still 1500 km+ away from the coast. UAVs are also currently small in numbers for China, but this will likely change in the next few years. As discussed in the previous blog entry, we are seeing both HALE and MALE UAVs getting developed by CAC. I don't know what the production rate for these UAVs will be in the future, but they should be sufficient for mass usage in war time. UAVs can be used to identify a carrier group in two ways:

1. By actually using its sensors to visually identify ships in the carrier group
2. Identify a carrier group indirectly if it is shot down by an asset from the carrier group

The first one is quite obvious and is the preferred way of identifying the carrier group. It will be able to get the targeting data of the carrier itself and be able to provide mid-course correction after the ASBM is launched. If most of the systems on the carrier group are not fully active, then the carrier group might not even know that it has been found and targeted. A carrier group is at most danger in this scenario. In the second scenario, the identification part would be achieved, but PLA still would not know the exact location of the carrier. Once the carrier group knows that it has been detected, it will turn its system to active, so that an attacking missile would have to face a prepared air defense. Once this happens, it will be a lot easier for other recon UAVs and assets to identify the coordinate of the carrier. Clearly, UAVs would be an extremely good way of identifying the carrier group, but many UAVs are needed to maintain patrol over the area scanned by the OTH radar. It is also imperative for the UAV to have low signature, which would make it hard to detect by a carrier group with air defense not fully active.

The final one I did not even realize in the first post. Jonesy brought up the idea of using SURTASS to detect a rapidly moving carrier group. A ship equipped with SURTASS can detect ships from hundreds of nm away. The range and power of a SURTASS ship would allow it to operate outside the coverage of the carrier group. The problem is that I don't think China has anything like SURTASS right now. And I don't think anything like it is going to be on the horizon either, so I'm not sure how plausible this solution it is. So, the pro is that a SURTASS ship would be able to provide accurate targeting data while staying out of harm's way. The con is that it might not be a poassibility for the near future. However, China has surprised me many times with new ship types.

And finally, I think that some people fail to understand the implication of this system. As mentioned above, this system would either force USN to turn on its system fully-on at an earlier point or leave itself really vulnerable to a long range attack. Even with its system fully-on, a salvo of ASBM would pose far more danger than a salvo of ASCM. As mentioned above, this would change the way that USN would plan the way that it comes into the Taiwan conflict. It could also possibly force the carrier to operate much further out, which would reduce the effectiveness of a carrier group. However, the biggest implication would be that China has actually managed to develop ASBM. For the longest time, the biggest objection I heard regarding to an ASBM system is how can it possibly have the accuracy of finding and hitting a moving target. I think that if this system is put in service, then they must have developed the seeker and the maneuver technology needed for this task. And if these technical problems with ASBM itself are solved, we can look forward to other types of ASBM like ones launched from strike aircraft, ships or even submarines. There are many possibilities. It is also possible that future versions of ASBM would contain not only a warhead but also decoys. The important part to remember is that this system either have not been deployed yet or is at the very early stage of its existence. The system will likely improve and also evolve into other forms in the future. As a result of this, BMD on ships against ASBM will also have to continuously improve in the future.

These are some of my additional thoughts on this topic. One of my goals is to get others to also think about the implications of this system. I'd like to again thank everyone who has helped me with this topic.

J-11BS finally

We finally have pictures of J-11BS coming out. I just got these yesterday and it's quite exciting actually. If you look at the cockpit, you can see the tandem seating like that of Su-30mkk. A lot of people have said that this is supposed to be Chinese version of Su-30. I'd have to look at them side by side, but my guess is that it would either be same in dimension to Su-30 or Su-27ubk (likely the former). You can see that it has black nose and black engine nozzle just like the photos we got in early 2007 of J-11B testing at CFTE. I believe the serial number for this is 532 compared to 52x for the J-11Bs.

Back then, people thought that black engine nozzle and nose indicate the usage of domestic engine (WS-10A) and radar. I think it's good to compare them a little more closely. The pictures below do a good job of showing the petals on the engine nozzles of Ws-10A and AL-31 (first one is WS-10A and second is AL-31). If you look at the original picture, the petals on the J-11BS does look like that of WS-10A. You see that the petals are one on top of the next rather than the pattern seen on AL-31FN in the second photo. I will stop there, since I don't think I'm qualified to comment on any more than this.



The other interesting part is that this is 532, so this is pretty much the second J-11BS sent to CFTE for testing. We received news a while ago, that one of the J-11BS crashed in flight testing, that probably was 531. Regardless, it seems like SAC is stuck working on different variants of flankers. J-11BS is basically China's version of F-15E, a long range strike aircraft with good A2A combat capabilities. It is the heavy, multi-role aircraft that PLAAF have been waiting for a while for. The next plane we are expected to see from SAC is J-11BJ, aka the naval flanker.

2nd PLAN fleet sent to Somalia + F-22P

The mission for the first fleet has ended and the second fleet is on the way there. As mentioned in this Xinhua article, the ships have already left on Thursday. The replenishment ship from the first fleet will remain there, but the destroyers are coming back. The second fleet (also coming from South Sea Fleet) will consist of the much traveled 051B. This ship is 154 m long, 17.1 wide and has displacement of 6580 ton. It is by far the most traveled of the PLAN ships, having made over 100,000 nm of travel around the world, here are some photos:



The other part of the fleet is the very new 570, which is one of the two 054As currently serving in South Sea Fleet. We've also received some of the statistics on 054A. The ship is 134 m long, 16 m wide and has displacement of 4053 ton. Here are some of its photos as it leaves China:




The other thing is that we've got some new photos of the 3rd 054A under construction from HuDong shipyard (6th overall). It's finally taking shape, looks like it might be launched in a couple of months.




Also, we have 252 getting fitted with FM-90N finally, here are some of the photos of the 2nd F-22P. I think it's going to start sea trial soon.

PLAN ASBM development

I was contacted by Galrahn to read over a Chinese blog entry on PLAN's ASBM development (found here) and post my thoughts on it.
I think that before you look further, there are some other good reads on this topic. Sean O'Connor has posted one of the better summaries on this regarding to OTH radar and ASBM threat. I have also written an entry in the past regarding ASBM threat, but it's really not that well researched. That one was based on an article that stated China has solved the difficulties surrounding hitting a moving target with a ballistic missile.

I think that the blog entry I read was definitely the best researched work on PLAN's ASBM plans. It listed many research papers that were written in Chinese and published years ago. As a result of that, I cannot possibly confirm that some of the things I've read are actually accurate. The sources that I can confirm on the Internet do seem to conform to what he was stating. I think in order to continue, it would be beneficial to read some of the resources that he mentioned. The include:
Sinodefence's Space Page
Sinodefence's Missile Page
Xianglong UAV Page
Yilong UAV page
The first one is important, because you can look through the current and future development in China's space industry. It's important to look through the communication, IMINT and EO satellites that China will use in this system.
In the second link, the important missiles to look for are DF-21 and possibly DF-15. In the third link, it lists China's probably most recent venture into HALE UAV. It's about 2/3 the size of Global Hawk or maybe even smaller. We don't have any figure on its endurance, but one would guess it's much less than that of Global Hawk due to the smaller size and less efficient engine. Although at this point, I would think that PLAN would be fine with an Asian Hawk. And the final link is an entry with information on China's version of Predator MALE UAV. The stats listed on that page were actually from its ddescription in the Zhuhai airshow, so I can verify that they are accurate. The two UAVs are both developed by Chengdu AC (the developer of J-10), so my guess is that Xianglong's endurance is comparable to Yilong (around 20 hours).

Reading through those links + Sean's blog entry are important in appreciating the rest of the ASBM system. I will try to make this out in Q&A format:

1. What caused China to start develop this system?
There are two main causes that drove this project. The first one is USA's Pershing II project. I guess this showed PLA the accuracy that can be achieved through MaRV warhead and active radar guidance. The second one is the Taiwan incident in 1996 when PLA's powerlessness against USN carrier group was on full display.

2. When did the project start and where is it now?
China probably started researching on MaRV right after Pershing II was deployed in 1984. By 1991, China had finished research on MaRV. According to the blog, there was a famous research paper in 1994 about attacking fixed target using MaRV technology. In 1999's national pride parade, they showed a missile with all the basic technology needed for the missile part of the ASBM system. If we look at the current status of the satellite constellations and reconnaissance platforms, we could probably say that the system has achieved some operational capability. The entire system needed for ASBM probably will not get set up until all the space assets and UAVs are online next decade.

3. Which missile are they using and what kind of improvements are they putting in?
It looks like DF-21 is the missile that ASBM is based on. It uses a solid propellant, is road-mobile, widely deployed and also have recently been improved to DF-21C. It's range of around 2000 km would perfectly cover the areas where future conflict is likely to be fought. Its range also would cover most of the areas that China's OTH-B radar would cover. It is also large enough to carry a large warhead needed to inflict damage on carrier while also holding a more complex guidance/seeker. They have put a MaRV warhead on DF-21 for maneuverability. In order to improve the penetration capability, they have added a third stage to it to provide unpredictable movement (I think the blog described it as some kind of oscillation). They have apparently made modifications to the warhead in order to lower its radar signature. They have also added a new multi-mode seeker that apparently has an active, passive radar and infrared seeker (I'm not sure how that works). It didn't mention how the missile would counter ESM of the fleet except for improving the seeker and getting more updated info from the sources that provided it initial targeting data.

4. What are the sources that provide targeting data for this ASBM system?
The blog basically listed 5 sources and they are:

• Reconnaissance Satellites - I think you can look at the Ziyuan and Yaogan series of satellites that have EO, CCD and SAR sensors as possibilities here. They could also be talking about the FY series, which is actually expected to be a constellation of Earth Observation satellites. I think it's important that in the 18th Committee on Earth Observation Satellites plenary and workshop in 2004, they announced they would launch over 100 Earth Observation satellites. I don't know enough about this to comment on which specific satellites I think will be used for scanning ships, but the blog did mention that China has used FY-2 series of satellites to track movement of targets. Another possibility is launching many short duration, micro-Earth Observation satellites in times of conflict. It mentioned that China can launch a 100 kg satellite on 12 hours notice. In peace mission 05. They launched an experimental satellite on August 2nd for detection/science experiment work. This operated for 27 days and returned to earth on August 29th after the conclusion of the exercise.
• Elint satellites - It mentioned something like USN's White Cloud Spaceborne ELINT System. The problem I have with this is that I can't find any mention of China having similar system anywhere.
  
• OTH Radar - Has a range of 800 to 3000 km. The accuracy in targetting is around 20 to 30 km. This can be improved to 2 to 3 km with improved algorithm. OTH radar can work with the recon satellites to provide more accurate targeting info.
  
• UAV - As mentioned above, China does have a robust UAV program going right now including the aforementioned XiangLong program. As we've seen in the Zhuhai airshow, they have numerous HALE and MALE UAV projects going. The major problem currently with Chinese UAV programs is that they simply don't have many small turbojet/turbofan engine series. As a result of having to work with what they have, the major design institute in AVIC-1 can't come up with the most optimal UAVs. I think that this will change in the next 10 years, so this part of the targeting system is behind recon satellites and OTH radar.
  
• Radio post - This is problem the most confusing one for me. The blog talked about working with elint satellites (which I don't think they have) to get the location of the carrier group through communications between ships and satellites/aerial assets.
  

5. How does the launching/attacking process work?
I think that in times of war, they would launch many micro-EO satellites that have short duration to increase reconnaissance in the area approaching Taiwan. Similar to US, they would have HALE UAVs to do advanced scouting in front of the war zone. The OTH radar will give the base initial idea of incoming fleet. This information would be combined with data of the recon satellites to provide a more precise and more accurate targeting data. The missile would be launched to the estimated position based on initial position + velocity, but this would obviously be off. Although, I think the movement of the carrier group will not be overwhelming. If the target is 2000 km away and the missile is traveling at mach 10 (343 * 3.6 * 10 = 10,000+ km/h) , it would get there in less than 12 minutes. During that time, if the fleet moves at 30 knots, it would move at most 6 knots or around 11 km from the original location. Still, if we add this to the initial precision problems of OTH radar + EO satellite, this could still cause the fleet to be outside the scanning area of the ASBM. In the cruising process, the missile would have to continuously communicate with the base through those new Data relay satellites (like TianLian-1 that they launched recently) to get more improve the precision. The ASBM will also likely veer off the path at this time, so it would need communication with Beidou-2 constellation in order to keep it on track. When it gets close to the target, the blog talked about 3 phases in its attack: high altitude guidance, high altitude gliding and low altitude guidance. I'm really not sure how accurate is the blog's description of the process. Its general theme is slowing down the speed of the missile as it gets closer to the target to maybe give the seeker more time to lock on to target and make unpredictable movements to penetrate defense.

6. What is the operational status of this system?
From all the past sources I've read, it seems like PLAN already considers this system to have achieved IOC. Normally, I don't read about a certain capability developed in a Chinese military magazine until after it is attained. From reading through different sources, it looks like IOC was probably in 2007 or 2008. As mentioned before, more elements in the system like UAV and satellites are getting added as time goes on, so I look at this as a continuously evolutionary process.

7. How beneficial is this system?
That I really would have no idea. I wouldn't even know how much damage would 1 missile cause on a carrier. I would think that if this system can even temporarily put one carrier out of commission and/or keep carrier groups further out from the mainland, it would've achieved its purpose.

8. Are there other launch platforms to this system?
I always thought that an-air launched version of ASBM from JH-7A is possible. There are certainly a large variety of short range ballistic missiles that JH-7A would be able to carry and provide updates for. I have not thought about launching ASBM from a SSBN, since that could easily be mistaken for a nuclear missile.

That's about it. I think a lot of resources on this are available to form an opinion.

Is J-10B finally revealing itself?

Back in December, we heard about J-10B taking off for the first time. So in the past week, we apparently got the first set of images for this plane. I've delayed posting these pictures, because it is very unclear and many people thought it looked to be PSed from previous photos. But I think these pictures have lasted long enough to have validity. And in many ways, I think the picture actually was pretty much what I expected it to be. You can see J-10B in the photos:



Now, we also see a comparison someone made between J-10 and J-10B

The differences look to be:

1. A long nose probe, although this is probably just for this development stage
2. The nose is now oval shape rather than round shape, this leads to speculation that this is built for an AESA radar, which I would agree with. It's pretty obvious that AESA radar is intended for this plane, although I'm not sure where NRIET is on mass production of T/R modules
3. DSI Intake instead of the old variable inlet
4. IRST in front of the canopy
5. Holographic HUD
6. Longer vertical stabilizer
7. A little ECM housing on top of the vertical stabilizer
8. The removal of the blade antenna on the spine
9. The two rear ventral fins are extended
10. The exhaust looks slightly different
    

Some thoughts on China's recent military budget and carrier announcements

In case you guys have missed it, two of the big announcements out of the National People's Congress this past week are the call for Aircraft Carrier by Admiral Hu Yanlin and the 14.9% increase in military budget.
I'd first like to address the aircraft carrier issue, since we've been talking about this for a while now. I think China's aircraft carrier ambition can go all the way back in the 80s and you can read about it in Scott Cooper's work on this. Just to list some of the very reasons for China wanting carriers:

• Prestige - It's humiliating to a lot of Chinese people that countries like Thailand, India and Brazil have carriers and China does not. It also doesn't help that Japan and South Korea are both basically completing attack helos that can operate STOL aircraft.
  
• National Power - This point is very similar to prestige. At current time, China is part of the permanent 5 in UNSC, the world's 3rd largest economy and the world's largest creditor nation. It is already a superpower in economical and political terms, but its military still lags behind the other two. It really needs a few carriers to show its military strength. India, the other growing Asian power, is looking to have 3 carriers by the end of the next decade, shouldn't China be looking for something greater than that?
  
• Maritime/Energy Interest - China is very dependent on the shipping line from Africa/Middle East to its ports. If these shipping lines get cut off, the Chinese economy will be in deep trouble. At the moment, China doesn't have the projection capability to even protect its commercial fleet from countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. The Chinese navy would have no way of winning a conflict around the Malacca Straits against any of these countries. In addition, Indian navy can probably cut off Chinese shipping lines at the moment. That really is an extremely scary proposition for Chinese military planners if we think about how easily their ally Pakistan is to get in a conflict with India.
  
• Future strategic needs - China is not likely to have an aircraft carrier commissioned with an air wing until at least late next decade. Even if it fast track through building carriers, building a naval air wing and learning about carrier operations, it still probably would not establish any kind of competence until 2030. For a country that is already dependent on global maritime trade and have commercial interest in all corners of the world, I think it's very likely China will have even more urgent needs for aircraft carriers in the next 20 years.
  

Having mentioned all of that, I think it has become clear in the last 2 years that China is definitely going to start work on a carrier. As early as 2005, they had discussions with Russians about Su-33 after Peace Mission 2005. There were also rumours in 2006 that they bought 50 Su-33s, although that has turned out to be a premature announcement. A couple of years ago, they basically unofficially told Admiral Keatings that they are going to build carriers. We have also seen a model of an aircraft carrier in the model for the new JiangNan shipyard. There have been other evidences here and there in the past few years. I think at this point, the work for the carrier has already started for a couple of years and we will start seeing pictures of it in the JiangNan shipyard by 2010-2011. The decision had already been made when they first brought up the possibility of aircraft carrier. All the announcement since have been to prepare the world for the inevitability.

As for what the carrier group will look like, I found this photo yesterday which contained basically the crown jewel of the South Sea Fleet (with 052B, 052C, 054A, 094 and 071).

I would imagine when the first aircraft carrier gets commissioned, it will join the South Sea Fleet with these ships as the escorts. It provides a nice snapshot of what a future carrier group would look like. Without a question, SSF is being prepared as the first fleet to have an aircraft carrier amongst the 3 major fleets. It has 5 of the 8 major replenishment ships, 4 of the most modern destroyers (168-171), 2 054A (will become 4 in probably a year and half), a nuclear submarine flotilla with 093s and 094s, the 071 LPD and many modern diesel submarines too. A lot of the recently added ships into the fleet seemed to be part of this planned escort group for a force projection fleet. In addition, it seems that the newly constructed Sanya base will be the home base for a new Ocean going fleet that will be sprung out of South Sea Fleet and operate to protect Chinese commercial interest in the shipping line, South Asia, Middle East and Africa.

For the second part, there was an interview a while back that addressed this. This is probably the most important part.

SPIEGEL: Many experts believe that the official budget figures are vastly understated. Do they include the costs of military research and of the People's Armed Police and the space program?

Chen: They do include the costs of research, but not for the People's Armed Police. Only the military portion of our space program is paid for under the defense budget.

Western governments have long expressed doubt about the accuracy of the officially announced budget and the pace of increase. The Pentagon often states it to be 2 or 3 times the official figure. I think a lot of that is based on past figures when imports from Russia constituted a much larger portion of the real military spending. Back then, they might import $3 billion from Russia in just the hardware and probably more on servicing/training when the official military budget was less than $20 billion. Now, they barely import anything from Russia and the official budget is $70 billion. I would think that the real military budget is higher if they include PAP and some other stuff, but there is no way that it would be even twice as much as the official one. RAND did a report on this in 2005 and I think the figure they came up with was somewhere between 1.5 to 2 times the official budget. With the current condition as I mentioned, the ratio of real to official budget must have dropped further. The other big issue that many countries have raised recently is in dramatic increase in military budget. In fact, South Korea and Australia sort of made a joint call for concern and greater transparency after the budget was announced. Now, I can see that a lot of governments like South Korea and Japan, that are traditional competitors in East Asia, would feel this way in this economical depression. But even through this tough time, the Chinese economy still grew 9% last year and is probably going to grow somewhere between 7 and 8% this year. The % of gov't budget spent on the military actually decreased this year from last year. Last year's increase was very high at 17%, but it was supported by a 13% GDP growth from the year before. It really isn't like China is increasing military expenditures excessively when it's citizens are starving. Back in the 80s when the economic liberalization first started, they had consecutive years of double digit cuts in military budget even when the economy was growing at over 10%. So, I think these complaints about increased military expenditures from numerous countries to be very hypocritical. One of the common notions that I heard is that Chinese military budget should increase at the pace of the economic growth. In the Bush years, the American military budget went up by an average of 7% a year even as its economic growth was much less than that. Instead of balancing its budget, its excessive spending for different gov't programs including military expenditure helped cause the current economic depression. Even this year, when the 4th quarter GDP dropped by 6%, they are still increasing the military budget by 4%. If we compare that to China, they have a very low budget deficit and public sector debt even with the increases in gov't size and military expenditure. Of course, China needs to be more transparent about how its money is spent, but I think it is slowly moving toward that direction. The recent white paper is part of that process.