Shanghai’s Covid-19 outbreak stalls plans for China’s third aircraft carrier
- The ribbon was expected to be cut on vessel this month but lockdown has delayed delivery of some essential components, sources say
- Staff from the shipbuilder have also been redeployed to combat the coronavirus
“But the plan faces delay as the rampant pandemic in Shanghai has delayed the transport of some key components,” one of the sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said.
Construction of the Type 003 has been under way at the Jiangnan Shipyard on Shanghai’s Changxing Island since 2017 and was expected to be ready for launch early this year.
Recent satellite image from Google Earth showed construction of the nearly 320-metre-long platform is almost completed.
According to the photos, covers have been put over the vessel’s three catapults, indicating they are ready, but the two elevators to lift aircraft from the carrier’s hangars have not been fitted fully.
Shanghai, the world’s biggest container port, is grappling with a shipping backlog as it tries to stamp out a weeks-long severe Covid-19 outbreak through a combination of lockdowns and mass testing, an approach known as “dynamic zero-Covid”.
“Indeed, the Shanghai shipyard has been understaffed because almost all local state-owned enterprises need to transfer a certain amount of manpower to help the ongoing anti-pandemic campaign,” the source said.
China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) said the shipyard had been contributing to the fight against Covid-19 since March 22, building three temporary hospitals with more than 4,400 beds on Changxing Island within a week.
The source said the pandemic would also push back plans to build two naval supply ships.
“Construction work of the two naval supply ships will only start when the aircraft carrier’s dockyard is empty. But now everything is stuck,” the source added.
CSSC is also the world’s largest commercial shipbuilder, and last week the group announced it was going to deliver near one dozen giant tankers for loading liquefied natural gas this year.
The Shanghai shipyard is also building at least two giant container ships for Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corporation, according to a report published by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in February.
Another source close to the Chinese military said the navy was planning a major launch for the third aircraft carrier, at least on a par with the one in 2017 for the Shandong, the first aircraft carrier to be built in China.
“A big ceremony needs a lot of people. But it’s too risky and difficult to get too many people together in the limited space of an aircraft carrier, given how contagious the Omicron variant is,” the second source said.
The first source said the new carrier would likely be named the Jiangsu, following the protocol of naming the vessels after coastal provinces, starting from the north to south.
01:51
First made-in-China aircraft carrier, the Shandong, enters service
China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is so far the only Chinese aircraft carrier with initial operational capability, or the basic level of combat readiness.
It started out as a half-built Soviet Kuznetsov-class heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser that Beijing bought from Ukraine in 1998 and spent more than eight years refitting.
No official reason has been given for why China’s second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, has not reached the combat-readiness stage.
The vessel’s frame was based on its sister ship, but its interior construction, weapons systems, and training operations are closer to those of the US’ Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, which team up with destroyers, frigates, attack submarines and supply vessels to form a strike group.
Both are carriers conventionally powered – as is the Type 003 – while the country’s fourth carrier, on which construction started last year, is likely to be powered by nuclear reactors, according to earlier SCMP reports.
