This year’s Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) saw multiple naval forces working together to sink a retired amphibious assault ship weighing nearly 40,000 tons, similar to a medium-sized aircraft carrier. A recent report titled “Turning the Tables” released by the US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) explicitly advocates for the US military to treat the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) aircraft carriers as strategic vulnerabilities that can be hunted down.
The CSIS report points out that the PLAN’s aircraft carriers serve as both prestige projects and crucial pillars for future Chinese maritime control and expeditionary operations, similar to US aircraft carriers. They are high-value, irreplaceable assets that are vulnerable to long-range strikes. In other words, despite the significant effort and political capital China has invested in building carrier fleets and shaping a narrative of “maritime consciousness” to mobilize public support, this narrative has become a double-edged sword. If China were to lose an aircraft carrier one day, the political impact on Beijing might be heavier than the actual military loss, echoing the logic of pre-World War I rivalry between Britain and Germany in desperately building dreadnoughts for prestige, only to become too hesitant to risk them in battle.
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