China’s Focus on Aircraft Carriers
Richard Halloran, “China’s Focus on Aircraft Carriers,” Real Clear Politics, 28 May 2007.
… The U.S. Navy had nearly 800 planes crash in training accidents in 1954 during the transition from propeller driven aircraft to jet aircraft, say Andrew Erickson and Andrew Wilson, who are on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Even as late as 1999, the Navy lost 22 planes flown by the world’s most experienced aviators. …
There appear to be five reasons China may buy or build a carrier:
* International prestige: Like Keating, Erickson and Wilson noted that Chinese often say “a nation cannot become a great power without having an aircraft carrier.” …
