Varyag to enter service with China’s North Sea Fleet: Duowei

June 15, 2012

Staff Reporter
Want China Times 

The destroyer Harbin, the current flagship of the North Sea Fleet, takes part in a joint exercise with the Russian navy on Apr. 26. (Photo/CNS)

Sources from the PLA Navy have told Duowei News, a website operated by overseas Chinese, that China’s first aircraft carrier will enter service with the North Sea Fleet.

Based in Qingdao on the Shandong peninsula, the mission of the North Sea Fleet is to protect the country’s coastline between Lianyungang in Jiangsu province and Bohai Bay, including defending Beijing from attacks launched from the sea. Two other ports used by the fleet are Huludao and Lushun, both in the northeastern province of Liaoning. Unlike the East Sea Fleet and South Sea Fleet, the North Sea Fleet has yet to see combat experience.

The Harbin, a Luhu-class destroyer, is the current flagship of the fleet. It has a destroyer division equipped with two Luzhou-class, two Luhu-class and four Luda-class vessels, a frigate division with one Jianghu-class and three Jianghu-II class frigates, as well as a submarine division with four Han-class and one Xia-class nuclear submarines. The fleet also has about 15 to 20 diesel-electric submarines.

Preparing for the commissioning of the country’s first aircraft carrier, the North Sea Fleet has two fighter divisions and one bomber division which it hopes to deploy aboard the former Soviet aircraft carrier which China purchased from Ukraine. A carrier-based helicopter group has also recently been established. The PLA Navy Air Force is now training its pilots to take off and land on the deck of the carrier.

“France had spent a decade to develop its own carrier strike group,” said Yin Zhou, a retired rear admiral. “Will China take that long to have our own carrier group? It is still a question that has yet to be answered.”

Though the South Sea Fleet is seen as the fleet with the greatest potential to engage in a combat situation due to territorial disputes over the South China Sea, it is considered unwise for the Chinese navy to deploy its aircraft carrier in southern waters as this would risk escalating the chances of conflict between China and nations of Southeast Asia.

It is seen as a better option to deploy the Varyag with the North Sea Fleet as it has the capability to provide support to the East Sea Fleet against the a potential intervention of the US Navy in a contingency involving Taiwan. The North Sea Fleet has also been ordered to pay close attention to the development of US naval bases at Sasebo and Okinawa in Japan. The North Sea Fleet would play an important role in an anti-access and area denial campaign against the US Pacific Fleet.